The Maximum Mortal Games
by Kotawings
Summary: Find out what happens when the characters from Mortal Instruments and Maximum Ride are entered in the Hunger Games!  They get sent to the future thanks to Magnus, who made a portal to the future.  LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
1. Chapter 1

The Maximum, Mortal Games

Chapter 1

Max's POV

Have you ever had the privilege to feel the wind in your hair? To feel wings moving powerfully at your sides?

I know I have.

It's the most amazing feeling in the whole world; trust me on this.

So here we were, me and my flock, heading toward NYC once again. We were drawn there for some reason, so we packed our bags and shipped out. We were almost there, and we had mixed feeling about being back.

I looked to my right. Fang was flying a little ways away, drifting in and out of air currents. Nudge and Angel were chit-chatting, and it looked like Iggy and Gazzy were plotting.

All in all, just our ordinary, average flight.

I spit some hair out of my mouth. I was going to have to cut it again soon.

In the distance, I could just make out the hulking shapes of skyscrapers; glinting in the late afternoon light.

A small smile appeared on my lips. Soon enough, we would be in the city that never sleeps, and we would be visiting the places where we had once been chased by erasers.

We had nothing to worry about anymore, though. We had had very little trouble from anyone recently.

I looked over at Fang, who had looked over at me.

My smile widened some.

"Hey," I said casually. "Do you mind if I go into overdrive?"

Fang nodded silently. "Go for it," he said with a small smile.

"Thanks, meet you guys in Central Park?"

He nodded again.

"See you there." I smiled one last time, then focused on the tiny city in the distance. "Look out NY. The Flock is back for more." Then I jetted into the distance.

Clary's POV

I was lounging around on Luke's couch when Simon burst through the door.

"Guess what?" he asked excitedly.

I sat up. "What?"

He smiled. "Guess."

"Ummm…" I thought for a second. "Maia asked you out," I said simply.

"Nope," he said shaking his head. "Try again."

Just as I was about to guess again, Isabelle burst through the door next.

"Hi guys!" she shouted. "Sorry to butt in, but Clary, you need to come with me. Magnus is having a party, and we're going whether you like it or not."

"But…" I began. I never got to finish because Isabelle was already dragging me to my room to "fix me up" as she called it.

"It's okay!" Simon called. "I'll tell you later!"

When we were finally in my room, Isabelle started digging in my closet.

"NO, no and no…" she muttered while tossing clothes around.

I sighed. "All I really have to do is wear what I'm wearing now and put on a ton of glitter you know," I mumbled.

"Don't be silly, Clary!" Isabelle said from deep inside the closet. "It may be true, but where's the fun in that?"

"Ah hah!" she shouted suddenly. "Here we go."

From the deep recesses of the closet, she pulled out a dark green dress. "This is perfect!" she squealed excitedly. "Now go get changed, Clary. We have to make sure you look your best. Don't try to argue, because Jace will be there."

She smirked.

I felt my cheeks heat up as I gave in and closed the bathroom door behind me.

OMINUS GUY IN THE FUTURE'S POV

The 100th Hunger Games are being prepared. And since this is a Quarter Quell, it will be much more different than the others. The arena is ready for the contestants, and the prep-teams and designers are ready for the tributes.

There is only a month left until the reaping. Things are going to be interesting this year, the game maker says that they have placed even more hazards, more mutts, and more supplies in the cornucopia. They have also changed the rules slightly, but no one knows what they have changed.

The 100th Hunger Games is beginning, and there is not a soul alive that isn't on edge. So let the games begin, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

A/n: Just for those curious souls…

This Fan fic is taking place in random places. The Maximum Ride POV takes place after the Flock's most recent B-days (AKA the b-day in Fang) and ignores the rest of the book, including Dylan.

The Mortal Instruments timeline is after COG.

The Hunger Games timeline is taking place after Catching Fire and ignores Mockingjay.

Please review! I don't mind constructive criticism, as long as it's not mean. If you have any suggestions, I'm also glad to pay attention to those. Thanks guys!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Max's POV

As I walked into Central Park, I realized that we had a problem.

CENTRAL PARK WAS HUGE. They would never be able to find me.

Without realizing it, I did an automatic face-palm.

I walked into a clearing, where, amazingly, there weren't any people. I launched myself up into the air and headed back the way I had come.

After a few minutes, I was back with the Flock.

"Why did you come back, Max?" Angel asked.

"I realized that you guys would never be able to find me!"

Everyone started laughing at my mistake.

Ah, good times.

When we got back to the park, we headed toward the city to find a hotel.

Amazing, I know.

We found a hotel that was within our price range and checked in.

As we flopped on the comfy beds, I began to think about what the next few days would hold for us. We had come here because we had nothing better to do, and we wanted to just be able to check out New York without having to be chased.

It was getting dark outside, and I had an idea. "Hey guys, want to have a little night flight over the city?"

As we stepped out of the hotel, I heard a little voice (not THE voice, though) that was warning me that this was a bad idea. But I promptly ignored it.

"U and A guys!"

As we flew over the city, we gazed at all of the flickering lights below us. Without meaning to, we started to head towards an older part of town.

The buildings were run down, and the streets were filled with garbage.

Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound.

We came to a halt. Just as Iggy was saying "What was that?" something burst from a cloud above us.

Nudge and Angel screeched, and we all scattered.

There were bunches of the things coming towards us. They didn't have wings, and they looking un-naturally pale.

As one sped toward me, I got a glimpse of its teeth. They were sharp and pointed fangs.

The things attacking us were vampires!

We fought back with brutality.

"Max!" Gazzy cried out suddenly.

I jerked around, narrowly escaping a vampire's grasp.

Three of the vampires had grabbed Gazzy and were flying him away!

"Gazzy!" I shrieked.

The rest of the vampires suddenly stopped attacking us and began following the ones carrying Gazzy.

"Flock! Follow me! They're taking Gazzy!"

We took off after the vampires, keeping up as best as we could.

"What were those things anyway?" Iggy asked suddenly.

Nudge took a shaky breath. "I hate to say this, but they looked an awful like vampires Ig," She said.

The others nodded.

"Come on!" I said. "We can't let them get away!"

Clary's POV

Magnus' house was just as I remembered it. Empty, dusty and filled with glitter.

Simon had decided to opt out of the party this time.

I couldn't say I blamed him, after he got turned into a rat last time.

As we entered the main room, I saw that the make-shift dance floor was crowded.

I had to listen hard to hear the music above everyone's chatter.

"Bottles poppin' 'till we can't stand, we keep it rocking 'till six AM. New York to London over to Japan, turn it up turn it up, mash it up, we're gonna party like…"

I couldn't help but smile. Such a good song. Although, it's ridiculous how much money was made off of a stupid conspiracy. If everyone had just realized that 2012 is just another year, there would be so many things that would never have been created. Especially that dumb movie. I laughed the whole time because it was just so stupid.

Anyway…

I scanned the apartment. Isabelle and I had come straight here after she had gotten me "prettied up."

Was Jace here yet?

I caught a glimpse of a familiar dark figure.

Well, Alec was here, so Jace was probably here to.

"Looking for someone?"

I spun around at the familiar, arrogant voice.

"Jace!" I shouted. He was smirking at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Admit it," he said. "You're not mad, you're just happy to see me."

I sighed. "You got me," I said.

I grabbed his hand.

"Now that I've found you, you get to come and dance with me."

"But…" he stammered.

"Come on!" But before I could pull him over, the front door burst open.

A bunch of vampires flooded in, seemingly dragging something with them.

"Oh man…" Jace murmured. "They've got something with them."

We watched the laughing vampires intently.

"LET ME GO!" the thing cried out. "You'll be sorry! Max and the others will never let you do anything to me!"

Jace paled.

"He can't be very old…" I whispered.

By now, Isabelle and Alec had joined us.

"What's going on?" Alec asked.

He saw the vampires, and his face immediately took on a look of concern.

"Magnus!" one of the vampires shouted. "Come and see this!"

The boy struggled more.

Magnus strode over, leaving a trail of glitter the whole way. "What is it?" he asked with a fake yawn.

"This boy," the vampire continued, "he has wings!"

The room grew silent.

"Oh?" Magnus asked casually; although he was clearly interested.

"Yes!" the vampire said eagerly. "And there are more of them! We only managed to grab this one, though."

Magnus stepped forward with interest.

"I don't see any wings," he said casually.

"He has them!" the vampire insisted.

The boy was remaining silent.

Magnus bent down so he was eye level with him. "What is your name, boy?" he asked.

The boy's face hardened.

"I won't tell you anything. Max will be here soon, and you guys will all be sorry."

Magnus looked amused.

"If you tell me what I want to know, I'll let you go," he said simply.

The boy said nothing, and his face grew even tighter.

Without warning, Jace walked over to Magnus.

"Magnus, let him go. The vampires have probably had too much to drink, and they're confused."

"Oh, I don't know Shadowhunter. I've heard tales of children with wings. The vampires very well could be lying, but what if they're not? If I let him go-"

SMASH!

With a deafening sound, the window in the room shattered inward. Gasps of surprise were echoed throughout the apartment.

"Gazzy! Are you in here?"

"Max!" the boy cried.

I tensed.

This wasn't going to be good.

Max's POV

As we smashed into the room, I could tell that there was a party going on.

There was fake smoke, loud music, glitter…

Then, I heard Gazzy's voice.

I focused on where I had heard his voice.

The rest of the Flock entered behind me, holding their wings high behind them.

As the dust cleared from the air, I was able to focus easier.

I saw them, the vampires holding Gazzy.

I strode forward, a snarl forming on my lips. I was acutely aware of Fang walking right beside me.

I walked up to a guy standing in front of the vampires.

"Listen here, whoever you are. Let Gazzy go, or we're going to have some trouble."

The tall guy, who was wearing about five tons of glitter, stared evenly at me.

"You must be Max," he said.

I rolled my eyes. "So what if I am?" I asked sharply. "Are you going to let my brother go, or am I going to have to kill you?"

The guys just laughed.

That is what did me in. I launched a punch at his face, but he caught it, and was looking at me with a fire in his eyes.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," he hissed.

Fang had tensed behind me.

THIS WAS WAR.

I held up three fingers, symbolizing three seconds until they attacked.

Two.

"You are about to get your ass whooped," I snarled at glitter man.

He stared back with the same fire in his eyes.

"I don't think so," he said quietly.

My eyebrows raised.

One.

Fang sprang at sparkle boy.

"Magnus!" another guy cried out from a little ways away. He ran toward me.

"Jace!" a girl called out from behind him.

I braced myself for a fight.

Iggy was already helping Fang with the tall guy, and Angel and Nudge were launching themselves at the vampires.

The guy rushing toward me had golden hair, and was obviously older than I was. It didn't matter though; he was in way over his head.

Just before he ran into me, I leapt forward, knocking him off balance.

His breath left him with an audible "Oof!"

Before I knew what I was doing, I was wrestling him to the ground.

He wasn't just any ordinary guy off the street, though. He had obviously had some sort of training.

As we fought, I heard Fang say "HOLY CRAP! THERE'S FIRE COMING FROM HIS FINGERS!"

Wha?

As I let my guard down for just a second, golden boy managed to get in a few lucky punches.

My eyes blazed like fire. "You're going to pay for that," I hissed dangerously.

He glared at me.

I stood up tall, and the guy with golden hair did the same.

I readied myself to tackle him, but before I could launch myself at him, a strange sucking sensation came from behind me.

The boy looked startled.

"Whoa!" Iggy cried out.

I snapped my head around to see what all the fuss was about.

A giant blue swirling thing had appeared in the center of the room, and it seemed to be drawing things towards it.

"Get back!" a red-headed girl shouted from across the room.

The boy fighting me retreated quickly.

WTH?

He was more of a coward than I had originally thought.

Suddenly, we were pulled back at a much quicker pace.

"Holy!" Nudge squeaked. "What is it Nudge?"

"It's some sort of energy field!" she cried. "It's trying to pull us in! I'll try and stop it!"

Nudge suddenly stopped struggling and closed her eyes.

The tall guy, who had seemed very focused, suddenly jerked and let out a surprised gasp.

The force field thingy pulled us faster, and now, several other people were coming with us.

Nudge's eyes snapped open suddenly. "EEP!"

The tall glittery guy had fallen to the floor and seemed to be concentrating very hard, but whatever he was trying to do, it only made our situation worse.

I fell down to the floor to stop moving, but it only slowed me down.

"MAGNUS!" someone shrieked. "MAKE IT STOP!"

"I can't!" the tall guy, who was apparently named Magnus, shouted.

"Whatever that girl did, it made the portal stronger! And we're not going to anywhere I know of…"

Just then, I was pulled sharply backwards, and I plunged into the portal.

I was falling downwards into nothing but blackness.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

A/n: This chapter is hereby dedicated to my friend XxAvengingangelxX. Just wait, she'll take over the world and you will all be her minions. :P

Max's POV

Falling in complete darkness is not fun.

I did everything I could to slow my descent, but my wings weren't working.

My mouth wasn't even working enough for me to call out to the others.

After what seemed like hours, I could see a light that was steadily growing larger.

As my eyes adjusted to the ever-growing light, I could just make out the shapes of other people near-by.

Not all of the shapes were familiar.

Finally, I was in complete light, and I realized that I was quickly falling towards the ground.

I tried again to open my wings.

Sure enough, they opened.

After my heart had slowed, I looked around to get my bearings.

The rest of the Flock had also opened their wings, but there were five more shapes plummeting to the ground below.

I sighed, signaled the Flock and dove towards the falling shapes.

As I got closer, I recognized three of them.

One was the tall, sparkly guy called Magnus; another was the boy with golden hair I had been fighting, and the final one I recognized was the red haired girl who had occasionally shrieked a comment.

The other two I didn't recognize, but they both had dark hair.

I swooped down and grabbed one of the people I didn't recognize so that I could prevent an argument.

The rest of the Flock grabbed other various people.

Thankfully, our passengers didn't squirm or make a fuss; if they had, we would have let them fall to the ground.

Heh.

As we drifted gently to the ground we braced ourselves for a fight. But as we landed and let the others go, they just turned around and stared at us.

Then, the boy with golden hair strode forward and extended his hand toward me.

"I think it's time we introduced ourselves," he said simply. "My name's Jace."

Jace's POV

As I waited for the girl with wings to shake my hand, I replayed the past ten minutes in my mind.

As soon as Magnus had opened up the portal I had ran backward as fast as I could so I wouldn't get pulled in.

Unfortunately, when one of the other girls messed with it, the strength grew and I got pulled in along with Mangus, Clary, Isabelle and Alec.

The girl tentatively shook my hand.

"Max," she said cautiously.

I shook her hand one last time. "Care to introduce me to your friends?" I asked.

Max looked at me as if I was an idiot. "How about you guys introduce yourselves first, then we go," she said without hiding her contempt.

I rolled my eyes.

"Fine."

I turned toward the others who were looking at Max and her group with a curious glint in their eyes.

"This is Isabelle, Alec, Clary and Magnus," I said shortly, pointing each one in turn.

"Your turn," I said with a smirk.

Max's eyes held a fire fueled by anger.

"This is Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy and Angel," she said, also pointing to each one in turn.

"And you guys have wings," I asked cautiously. "Right?"

Max nodded curtly.

"Now that we have established that we're freaks," the boy called Iggy said, speaking up for the first time, "What the heck are you? You're not normal people."

"Good call," Clary said. "Especially since you're blind. Don't deny it."

Iggy flushed, but said nothing.

Come to think of it, his eyes WERE clouded over. I wonder how that happened…

As I was contemplating how on Earth these six kids had gotten wings, Clary, with a little help from Alec and Isabelle (and a lot of help from Magnus) basically explained our life story.

After we got the bird kids to understand, Max and Fang proceeded to tell their story.

I actually listened in, and I was quite intrigued. I even found myself feeling pity for them.

"Well," Magnus said after Max had finished speaking. "If we're done with show and tell, I suggest that we work on figuring out where we are."

Isabelle spun to face him.

"You mean you have no idea where we are?" she asked.

"Well, I think we may have ended up in the future, but one can never be sure."

We all looked around at each other, beginning to freak out.

"Come on then," Magnus continued. "Let's see if we can find someone to tell us where we are."

Max's POV

I didn't trust Jace.

I think that Clary is trustworthy, and I feel like I can believe her. But Jace was another story completely.

He was arrogant, and the whole time Clary was explaining things to us, he didn't say a word; he just kept looking us over.

I'd have to ask Angel about his thoughts later.

We walked along in an uncomfortable silence for a little while.

I just knew that someone was going to do something to show off; and after about 20 minutes of walking, my prediction came true.

We were just walking along in silence, when, suddenly, Gazzy started belting out _Teenage Dream _in a perfect Katy Perry voice.

"You make me feel like I'm livin' a TEENAGE DREAM…"

Everyone spun to look at him.

Gazzy's eyes were shining and the Flock was trying to not burst out laughing.

"How..." Alec started.

"Oh, I forgot to mention that we all have special powers too," I said with a cocky smile. "One of Gazzy's happens to be mimicking. The rest of our powers will be revealed in time. Shall we continue walking?" I asked, changing the subject.

Everyone nodded, and Isabelle cast one last look at Gazzy.

The silence didn't last very long. Magnus suddenly felt the urge to ask Gazzy a question.

"Could you sing an entire song for us? I could use some music…"

"Sure!" Gazzy cried immediately. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then...

"Oh baby baby, how was I supposed to know? Hit me baby one more time!"

This got a laugh out of everyone. Even out of Fang and Alec, who were quite a bit alike.

As Magnus turned back to the road, he stopped short.

"Ah, I see we have finally found civilization. Unfortunately, if this is the future, it is not as bright as everyone thinks it will be."

We all turned to the direction Magnus was facing.

"Oh God," Isabelle whispered.

The town standing before us was in shambles and looked virtually deserted.

Without an actual verbal command, we all took off towards the town. When we reached it, we could tell that it wasn't deserted.

We looked around in amazement. The town was way beyond run down, and the people looked like walking skeletons.

As we ran into the town center, we got strange looks. People started murmuring and crowding around us.

I managed to catch some phrases:

"Who are they?"

"Where did they come from?"

"Will they stay here?"

"Will they be eligible for the hunger games?"

Hunger games? What was that?

Then, appearing from the crowd surrounding us, a very important man stepped out.

"Hello strangers," he said. "Welcome to district 12. Follow me; I have some questions for you."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A/N: Hey guys! I'm sorry I've taken so long to update my story; school has decided to get in the way of the rest of my life. :P I want to tell everyone thanks for the tips, I'm still kinda new to fiction writing! I'll try to be more consistent on updating my story from now on!

Kotawingz

Max's POV

We followed the man into a giant building in the center of the worn down town. _Where are we?_ The others are just as confused, judging by their looks. Not even Magnus knew where we were. We followed the man up some stone steps and inside. Once in, he led us into a room with velvet furniture and plush carpets. This room contradicted the rest of the town.

"Sit, sit," the man said while gesturing towards the velvet chairs. There wasn't enough room for us all to sit, so some of us remained standing. "Now," the man continued, "let's get down to business. Who are you, and where on earth did you come from?"

"We could ask you the very same thing," I said, trying not to show any fear. The man shook his head.

"My apologies. I am the mayor of District 12." He stuck out his hand to me, which I ignored.

"What on earth is District 12?" Jace asked from behind me. The mayor looked bewildered.

"What do you mean? I assumed that you were at least from Panem!"

"Panem?" all of us asked simultaneously. We were certainly not the only ones confused, the mayor was just as confused as we were!

"I ask again," the mayor said, his voice quivering slightly, "where did you come from?" I decided that I might as well answer.

"We came from New York," I said cautiously. "You know, where the Statue of Liberty is? Where Times Square is? The Empire State Building?" As I said each of these things, the mayor just got more confused. I let out a long sigh. "I got nothing. If you don't even know where New York is, you've been living under a rock. Do you even know where North America is?"

That, obviously rang a bell. "North America?" the mayor asked quietly. "You came, from North America?"

I was beginning to freak out. "Yes…" I said slowly.

"But North America was destroyed ages ago!"

Jace's POV

I turned around to face Magnus. "Is it possible that we traveled into the future?"

Magnus shook his head. "I don't know. When I was trying to get rid of our new friends," he glanced at the bird kids, "I wasn't picturing any place like this! I don't think anybody has ever even gone into the future by a portal before!"

This was way bad. I whirled around and strode up to the mayor, ignoring Max asking me to remain calm. "Where exactly are we?" I asked the mayor.

"You're in Panem!" he said standing up. "And I would greatly appreciate it if you did not use a threatening tone with me!"

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Jace…" I turned around and saw Clary. She looked scared. I threw one last menacing glace at the mayor and stalked to the back of the room. I barely registered Max asking the mayor where we were again. My mind was working furiously. If Magnus HAD somehow brought us all to the future, than we were in trouble. How would we get back? And if this was the future that was in store for the U.S.A, it was not a bright one.


	5. Chapter 5

Max's POV

We had a long and complicated discussion with the mayor of district 12. By the time he said we could leave, we had figured out several things.

We were at the very least several hundred years into the future, and the human race had all been wiped out.

Magnus had no idea how to get us back to the present.

District 12 was very poor and therefore we were going to have to take care of ourselves.

Jace, Clary, Fang, Iggy, Alec, Isabelle, Nudge and I were to be entered into "The Hunger Games" reaping.

Whatever that was.

So, we decided to go talk to someone who could tell us what "The Hunger Games" were. We walked along the street until we found a girl who looked like Nudge's age.

"Excuse me," I said. The little girl stopped. "We're new here, and we were wondering, could you possibly tell us what 'The Hunger Games' are?"

She looked at us as if we were crazy. Angel stepped forward.

"Please?" she asked in her angelic voice. "We really don't know what it is."

The girl hesitated, but finally gave in.

"You really don't know?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"Ok," she said with a disbelieving look. "The Hunger Games is a competition that the capitol holds every year. It's basically a fight for survival between 24 kids, two from each district."

She paused, her eyes got glassy.

"It's a fight to the death," she said quietly. "Only one kid comes out alive, and they are treated like heroes. Everyone is forced to watch it on TV... every year. My sister, Katniss, she was in the Hunger Games twice. I don't know what happened to her the second time… I just know that she's not dead."

We looked around at each other in horror. What a terrible thing to do.

I bent down so I could look directly into her eyes.

"What's your name, sweetie?" I asked quietly.

"Prim," she said. She stood up a little taller.

I smiled. "Thank you for telling us about the Hunger Games, Rue. I hope you find out what happened to your sister."

Rue gave a sad smile and continued down the street.

I let out a sigh. "Poor little kid."

I turned around to the others, only to see them frozen with shocked looks on their faces.

"What?" I asked.

"The mayor said that WE might be in the Hunger Games, Max," Nudge whispered.

Reality crashed over me. What if two of us were pitted against each other? What if we died?

What were we going to do?

Jace's POV

Well Shit.

Today has not been one of my better days. First, we get into a fight with a bunch of mutant bird kids, then, we get sucked into a portal to the future, then we find out that we may have to fight each other for our own survival.

Great.

_Several Days Later…_

We are officially done for.

President Snow , the president of all the districts, just announced that eight kids from each district were going to be in the Hunger Games this year to show the districts who's boss. The districts are also able to choose who they send. Well guess what?

The lucky eight were us older kids.

I guess I can't exactly blame the district, I mean, we just randomly showed up one day, and this is a chance for them to save their own children for once.

But it was still REALLY bad news for us.

We were immediately loaded onto a train that headed for the capitol. There, we were shown videos of previous Hunger Games to help prepare us for what was to come.

It was absolutely mortifying.

How could they do this to innocent kids? Why would anybody force kids to fight to the death? It's just wrong! And there were going to be 96 kids in the arena this time.

Talk about a blood bath.

The past few weeks have been tough on us, and tomorrow we're heading out for the opening of the games.

I sat on my bed with my head in my hands, deep in thought, trying to think of a way out of this.

It would be a hell of a lot easier for the bird kids to escape. Unless of course there was some kind of invisible roof over the arena.

Sigh. What to do? Even though I hadn't known the Flock for very long, I most certainly didn't want to have to kill them. And then there were my friends…

What if I had to kill Clary?

Max's POV

We all had separate rooms, which was a good thing since I practically trashed mine.

The first day we got here, I went and turned over every single piece of furniture in my room, kicked a couple of things, then went and sat on the over-turned couch.

I know, I'm so classy.

Now I was mulling over various escape ideas. I had ruled out anything that had to do with flying out, our designers had stripped us bare and knew perfectly well about out wings.

In fact, they had us flaunt them on our way here.

I paced the room over and over again, discarding ideas and coming up with new ones. But in the end, I couldn't think of anything to get us out of this.

I finally sat down on the bed (the only piece of furniture that I decided to flip back over) put my head in my hands and…

Wait for it!

Cried.

Yes, that's right!

Me, Maximum Ride, warrior princess, eraser killer, stunt flyer, and fail cook started to cry.

I NEVER CRY.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, there was a knock on my door.

Just friggen perfect.

"Go away!" I croaked.

Of course, whoever was behind the door didn't leave. Whoever it was also didn't say a word. That meant it could only be one person.

Fang.

I tried my best to rid myself of all the tears, but it was impossible to do so before Fang walked into the room and sat next to me. He put a hand on my shoulder.

"It'll be ok, Max."

I looked up into his dark eyes. So dark that you could barely see the pupil.

"What are we going to do?" I asked, still trying to control myself.

He shrugged. "We'll figure something out, we always do." He took my hand in his.

And, cue tingly feelings.

We just stared at each other for a few moments, but it seemed like an eternity.

Finally, he kissed me lightly on the cheek and stood up. When he got to the door, he looked back at me with a small smile.

"We'll be ok. Stop worrying, at least for now."

Then, he walked out, leaving me speechless and touching where he kissed me.

This is it.

I had been fitted with a skin-tight, one-piece outfit, and was now standing in a tube that would bring me into the arena. I had no idea where the others were.

I just hoped that they would be ok.

I looked down at my royal blue "outfit." The fabric was soft and supple, good for moving in. They had even put slits in the back for my wings.

I heard a loud buzzer sound, and I was heading up. I stretched as much as I could in the tube, getting ready for whatever was waiting for me.

I looked up toward the sky. It was a brilliant robin's egg blue. I was almost out.

My head burst into the open and I began to take in my surroundings.

Oh, God.

We were in a desert.

A FRICKING DESERT!


	6. Chapter 6

Max's POV

I had just enough time to take in my surroundings before the games began and hell broke loose.

Kids were everywhere, all of them heading for the cornucopia in the center of the arena. Our little group of freaks had agreed to only grab some essential things and then head east.

I hoped we would all make it.

I sprinted toward the cornucopia at full speed. When I had enough momentum, I spread my wings. I lifted just high enough off the ground to gain speed. I was still low enough to grab things. I passed by dozens of kids, none of which I recognized.

As the first kids began to reach the cornucopia, the blood bath began.

Kids of all ages grabbed knives, spears, swords and other weapons. Kids desperately grabbed at supplies, trying to avoid death.

Several kids were already lying motionless on the ground.

I felt sick.

As I reached the area surrounding the cornucopia, I began to grab things randomly. I managed to pick up a few weapons, a backpack, some food and a bottle of water.

Then, I heard a _swish_ by my left ear.

A kid had just thrown a knife at me and was preparing to throw another.

I launched myself into the air without further hesitation.

The kid jumped back in shock and was then killed by another kid.

Sickening. Just sickening.

I rose higher and higher. I scanned the ground and the air around me, looking for my friends and family.

Moments later, a blur shot into the air.

Iggy.

I sighed with relief. I had been extremely worried about Iggy. With all the noise, I wasn't sure how he would be able to navigate.

"Over here, Igg!" I shouted.

Iggy turned and flew toward me.

I grabbed him in a hug as soon as he reached me.

"Max-you-are-suffocating-me!"

"Sorry," I mumbled as I backed off.

Iggy rubbed his arm where I had squeezed pretty dang hard.

"I was just really worried about you," I blustered.

"Isn't everyone?" he asked irritably.

I gave a sad smile, which was, of course, wasted on Iggy.

Just then, another blur shot up from the ground.

Nudge came to a halt next to me, clinging to the few things she had managed to grab.

She beamed at me. "You're ok!" she said happily.

"I exist too ya' know," Iggy said with a huff.

Nudge rolled her eyes and said "Of course, Iggy. I wasn't just addressing Max."

I scanned the ground again.

There.

Headed due east, there were four small shapes running as quickly as they could. It had to be the Shadowhunters. It just had to be.

I wanted to follow them, but Fang was still missing.

I turned to Nudge.

"Nudge, did you see Fang anywhere down there?"

Nudge nodded. "He was only a few platforms away from me. Last time I saw him, he was headed for the cornucopia."

_Then where is he?_

Fang's POV

Max had to be worried by now. I know I'd be worried about her.

The stupid kid had hit my right wing. It hurt way too much to open it. I had run into the cornucopia, where surprisingly, there were no kids. But they would probably be here before long.

I didn't want to have to kill anybody, but I would if I had to.

How long could I wait here before I had to kill or be killed?

Max's POV

"I'm going back down."

"Come back, Max!" Nudge cried.

Fang had been gone way too long. Sure, it had only been several minutes, but that was more than enough time to escape that hell-hole.

I dove straight toward the cornucopia, searching for Fang the whole time.

Most of the kids that were still around were dead. The few still alive must have been working together because they weren't killing each other. They were heading for the mouth of the cornucopia.

Fang definitely wasn't one of the dead ones. I was sure of that.

Was he inside the cornucopia?

I blew past the group of kids. They shouted loudly and I felt arrows shoot past me.

I shot right into the cornucopia and looked around.

"Max!"

I turned toward Fang's voice.

"My wing's injured!" he explained quickly as he ran toward me.

I was so relieved that he was still alive that I could have kissed him right then and there, but we had some problems to deal with first.

Getting out and to safety, for example.

"Can you still move your other wing?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Then come on, I'll help you fly out."

We ran toward the entrance and threw ourselves into the air.

I heard Fang gasp in pain as he opened his injured wing.

"Just close it!" I said.

He shook his head. "There's no way that would work. Just help support me."

Just as I thought that we were going to get away safely, more arrows shot past my head.

I took a quick glance back.

The kids I had seen before were firing at us, and they had amazing accuracy.

Thankfully, we were almost out of range.

Nudge and Iggy came out of nowhere and helped me keep Fang aloft.

"Can you still see the Shadowhunters?" I asked Nudge.

She nodded. "Just barely, but I think we can still follow them."

"Then let's go," I said determinedly.

Clary's POV

We were lucky to get out of there alive, much less cover any ground without anyone following us.

The carnage at the cornucopia was unbelievable. Kids younger than I were sprawled all across the ground, unmoving and bloody.

But let's not dwell on the carnage that has already happened; let's focus on the carnage yet to begin!

Oh joy.

As I mentioned before, I said that we were lucky to cover ANY ground without being followed. Which meant that we were spotted before long.

We were walking along, going as fast as possible without running. Then suddenly, Jace stiffened.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Get down!" Jace cried.

We didn't argue. We all flopped on the ground just as a torrent of arrows shot above us.

We had been found.

Suddenly, there was shouting behind us and the pounding of feet.

"Run!" Alec shouted.

None of us had any better ideas, so we ran as fast as we could.

Arrows whizzed by our heads, past our ears, one even got caught in my hair.

These kids had a great aim.

They also had great stamina, much better than the rest of us. Which was why we started to panic when we weren't losing them.

"They're gaining on us!" Isabelle panted.

I took a quick look back.

"We should fight them!" Jace said. "No more running! We're tougher than they are!"

Alec gave a grim nod and can to a skidding halt. The rest of us did the same. This was the first time we got to see our attackers clearly, and it was not pretty.

There were ten of them and only four of us. They were all around our age and were big and buff. And all of them were guys.

Not that being a guy changes anything.

So all in all we were heavily outnumbered. They also had weapons at the ready. We had weapons, but they were NOT ready.

Gulp.

Max's POV

It had been about half an hour before we ran into trouble.

Fang was able to fly on his own, but he was still pretty wobbly. The rest of us were just focusing on keeping the Shadowhunters in our sights. It's more difficult than it sounds, trust me on that.

Anyway…

About ten minutes ago, I noticed some more black dots on the ground. They couldn't be more Shadowhunters since we already had our four in our sights.

"Look directly below us guys!" I shouted above the wind. "Could be trouble! Keep an eye on 'em!"

Iggy, Nudge and Fang nodded warily.

Sure enough, the dots following our dots began shooting arrows. It was only thanks to Jace's quick reflexes that they didn't get skewered.

"That's our cue guys!" I said, beginning a steep dive.

The merry band of Shadowhunters were running at full speed, but there was no way they'd be able to keep it up for long.

We were heading toward the ground at full speed when suddenly Alec turned around. The others followed suit and stood at ready positions.

The thugs stopped in their tracks and looked at them in bewilderment, but quickly regained their composure and readied their bows.

"Charge!" Jace shouted.

What on Earth are they thinking? You can't just charge ten thugs with bows and arrows! You'll wind up a human pin cushion!

I angled myself so that I would land right on top of the biggest thug. Even with all eight of us together we were still outnumbered, but we had much more experience.

I hit the thug feet first. His breath was knocked clean out of him and the others started in shock.

"Sorry to drop in so unexpectedly," I said with a sneer. "I hope I didn't startle you!"

"You're toast, girlie."

I turned to the thug who spoke.

"Oh yeah? You wanna fight someone who just dropped from the sky?"

"We outnumber you," he said simply. "And I don't like girls. We're gonna win the Hunger Games and live the good life at home."

The rest of the thugs came and stood beside him. Well, except for the one I was standing on.

Fang, Iggy and Nudge had landed beside me, and the Shadowhunters came and stood behind us.

We were definitely looking intimidating.

"Bring it on!" I said with a smirk.

The thugs didn't even waver.

I guess I had to give them credit for that.

I just wish I had known what was in store for us.

A/N : Hey guys! Thanks for reading my story so far Now, I need some feedback and opinions from you. I've been thinking about possibly killing off one or two of the main characters. But I want to know what you guys think of that. Just lemme know in the reviews! I also have a pretty good idea about how they could get back into present day, but I'm not telling you! You'll just have to wait for the end!

Thanks!


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Yay for spring break and driving courses! Hopefully I'll be able to update one or two more times in the next week! I don't think I have anything better to do than write! I think the next several chapters may be longer, too.

One last thing… Is it at all weird that I'll listen to the song "ET" (by Katy Perry) and be fantasizing about Fang? I hope it's not just me being weird again… O_o

Reviews are appreciated!

Max's POV

The sandstorm hit without warning.

One moment, we were standing there, facing off, when suddenly a giant, unnatural gust of wind toppled us over as if we were empty plastic bottles.

"Whoa!" Iggy cried out.

And that was just the beginning.

After the first gust, there was no escape. Sand began to kick up, the few plants that lived here were being uprooted and the thugs were quickly thrown away from us.

"Ah!" I cried as I did a back flip against my will.

I landed hard on the ground and tried to brace myself against the wind. I stayed low to the sand. My eyes screwed up against the particles flying through the air.

"Max! Where are you?"

I wasn't positive who said it, but that didn't stop me from answering.

"Over here! Everyone move towards my voice!"

Slowly, shadows began to appear out of the sea of sand.

I began going through my mental checklist. Although this time I made sure to remember the Shadowhunters.

_Nudge, Iggy, Clary, Alec, Fang, Isabelle…_

Where was Jace?

"Jace?" Clary asked, looking around at the others. "Where did he go? I saw him just a second ago…"

"JAAAACCCEEEE!" Alec called.

"Coming!"

Phew.

Minutes later, Jace tumbled into view, coughing and hacking.

Clary speed crawled over to him.

"You ok?" she asked.

Jace nodded briskly.

His mistake was trying to stand back up.

Jace stood, not without trouble, but was quickly forced back down by the wind.

"There's no way we're going to get anywhere during this storm!" Alec called. "We'd better make shelter around here somewhere!"

"How?" Isabelle asked. "There's nothing to protect us!"

I quickly dug through my backpack.

_There. A collapsible tent!_

I pulled it out without further hesitation and pulled a string that made it pop open.

Bad idea.

The tent caught the wind like a sail and began to pull me through the air.

"Ah!"

But before much else could happen, Fang, Jace, Alec and Isabelle were by my side, helping me drag the tent back down to Earth.

Then I realized that there was nothing to hold the tent to the ground.

"Now what, genius?" Jace yelled at me.

I dug around in the backpack once more, searching for tent spikes.

Meanwhile, the others were doing their best to keep the tent grounded.

Let me tell you, it's a lot harder than you may think to look for something during a sandstorm. The wind was blowing my hair in my face and sand was stinging any part of my body not covered.

Add that to the fact that the backpack was slowly being ripped from my hands, and you have yourself a catastrophe.

At long last, I found four tent pegs. Now all we needed was something to push them into the ground.

One more quick search lead me to find absolutely nothing.

I ran over to the others and began to furiously drive the tent pegs into the sand.

Again, not as easy as you may think.

The sand was loose enough without the wind, and the tent pegs weren't able to find purchase among the soft dunes.

"Nudge!" I cried over the howling wind. "Find something to surround the pegs!"

I was just able to make out Nudge's shadow searching for anything that might help the pegs stay in the ground. Finally, she came over with a small pile of assorted rocks and pebbles.

"It was all I could find!" she called.

"I'll make it work!"

Once again, I pushed the peg into the sand. But this time, I had Nudge pile some rocks around it to help it stay.

With any luck, it would last us long enough to let us get some rest.

We did the same for the other three pegs, and by the end, we had a very lop-sided tent.

"Everyone inside!" I cried.

We all piled inside the tent, and there was certainly not enough room.

"Move! Your elbow is in my eye, Clary!"

"Well your foot is digging into my side, Isabelle!"

"Stop bickering you two! Ow! Who just kicked me?"

"My bad! Didn't see you there!"

"Well, of course you didn't Iggy! You can't see anything!"

"What's your point, Alec?"

"Iggy, there's room over here."

"Don't step on me!"

"Clumsy oaf!"

"Gah! Fang! Stop moving so quietly!"

"It's hard to make noise while stepping on sand, Max."

"Well, step on someone then!"

"No thank you."

"Iggy! This way!"

"I can't tell where you are, Nudge! Keep talking!"

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know! Just say something until I get over there!"

"Don't stop, make it pop…"

"Agh! Never mind! I'll find you eventually."

On and on it went, no one able to be quiet in such a crowded tent.

Well, except Fang, of course.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: The theme song for this chapter is "_This is War"_ by 30 Seconds to Mars. If you've never heard it, you should listen to it. It's a great song. Oh, and my journalism teacher said that she wanted me on yearbook 'cause "we could really use your writing skills." I felt loved! ^^

Max's POV

The dreams I had that night could easily be compared to the ones I had about The School.

It started out with me walking through the desert, all alone.

I kept looking around, like some paranoid freak. Suddenly, a kid leapt out from underneath the sand, holding a knife.

Three others popped up around me, surrounding me.

And these kids weren't normal. They had blood trickling from their mouths and one walked with a limp.

I had nowhere to run, I had no weapons and I definitely didn't want to kill anyone.

You may be thinking, why the hell didn't I fly?

I tried, but my wings wouldn't open. You know, like in those dreams where you can't run no matter how hard you try? You're completely stuck?

That's what this was like.

So I just sat there, struggling to escape while the monster children closed in on me.

The worst part was waking up just as one grabbed me.

Now I'll never know whether I lived or died!

It's just creepy.

I bolted upright, sweating. I quickly scanned the area so I could figure out where I was.

_Think, Max. Think._

Ok, I was inside a shabby tent in the middle of a desert which is being used for a battleground for a fight to the death between 96 kids.

No big deal.

The sandstorm had obviously stopped. I couldn't hear any wind, and the tent wasn't moving.

I wondered how many kids had died because they didn't have any shelter.

I found that I wasn't the only one awake. Fang sat by the entrance gazing out into the sunset.

I carefully stepped around the sleeping shapes and sat down by him.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked quietly.

He nodded.

"May I ask why?"

He shrugged, still as quiet as ever.

We remained silent. Not as in an awkward silence, but a peaceful silence.

The sun set slowly out here in the desert; a big red ball of flame the turned the sky crimson.

Like the blood that was spilt today.

As the sky slowly grew dark, I felt an inner peace set in. We've been through tougher things than fighting a bunch of kids with little or no training. We could even avoid them if we didn't want to hurt anyone.

We could get through this.

I glanced over at Fang. He seemed at peace, too.

Without really realizing it, I slid over and rested my head on his shoulder.

Ah, the little things in life that you enjoy.

I felt Fang tense slightly when my head first touched his shoulder, but he relaxed quickly enough. He even pulled me a little closer.

Just as I was beginning to relax, lights flared up in the sky and music began to play.

Jace's POV

I was awakened from sleep by a loud, obnoxious song playing.

I sat upright and carefully made my way to the front of the tent.

Max and Fang were sitting half in and half out of the tent; looking out into the night.

"Wha'ss going on?" I slurred. I guess I hadn't realized how sleepy I still was.

"Not sure," Max answered. "But I think it has something to do with the games."

"No duh, Sherlock," I retorted.

By now, several of the others were stirring.

I looked outside to see what was going on.

"Max, what's going on?"

Nudge stumbled over to us, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

Just then, a picture of a kid flared up in the sky, shining for a moment before it was replaced with another.

I counted exactly 23 pictures when the night became silent again.

"What was THAT all about?" Alec asked.

Fang was the one who answered.

"I recognized some of those kids. They were ones that I saw… dead."

Well then.

"Does that mean that the pictures we saw were kids that died?" Nudge asked.

Max nodded slowly. "I think that's exactly what that was all about, to let the other kids know who's still out there."

Alec swore. "I didn't think to count them!"

I smirked. "Glad that I remembered!"

"Well then, smarty pants, how many were there?"

"23, exactly."

"So that leaves…"

Ugh, I HATED math.

I looked around at the others, hoping to see someone counting on their fingers or something. My gaze rested on Max.

"Don't look at me! I've hardly had ANY schooling at all!"

"Come on, surely you can to simple subtraction!"

"Maybe I can, maybe I can't! And don't call me surely."

"Ha ha, you're hilarious."

Max answered by sticking her tongue out at me.

"Well if you guys will stop arguing, I'll tell you how many opponents we have left." Isabelle stepped out of the shadows crowding the back of the tent. It was pretty cool, like something out of a movie.

"How many do we have left, great math master?"

"We have 73 left. Honestly, the math is NOT that complicated."

"Well, we're tired," I argued.

"Boo hoo. Next time, suck it up instead of making yourself look like a complete idiot."

I heard someone snort.

Sigh.

Max's POV

Since we had pretty much slept through the day, we decided to cover some ground.

We carefully folded up the tent and packed it back in my backpack.

It was surprisingly light.

Even though us bird kids could have covered much more ground if we flew, we decided to walk with the Shadowhunters to keep them company.

Let me just say this, Jace can get really, REALLY annoying.

"So just as I was about to slay the Oni demon…"

"Do we care, Jace?"

Jace threw me an evil glare.

You know what they say, if looks could kill…

Jace continued on with his oh so amazing story, which I just happened to tune out.

Instead, I surveyed our surroundings for the millionth time, only to find stars, sand and the occasional cactus. There were no signs of other contestants or anything that could kill us, so we were doing good.

For the time being.

Nighttime in the desert was surprisingly cold, but I'm sure most of you knew that, going to school and all.

I chanced a glance at Jace, whose mouth was still moving which meant that he was STILL talking.

Time to take action.

I looked around on the ground for a rock or something that I could chuck at him. Finally, I found a pebble. It was big enough to get his attention, but not quiet big enough to seriously hurt him.

Heh heh.

I silently threw the rock through the air towards his pretty blonde head. I then proceeded to look as innocent as possible.

"Ow! What the…"

I couldn't help it; I snickered.

"Oh, you think that was funny, do you Max?

"Well yeah!" I said. "Would I have done it otherwise?

"So it WAS you!"

"Bingo! Iggy, tell the man what he's won!"

"You're dead, bird girl!"

"Ooh! I'm absolutely terrified!"

Just then, Jace came and full on tackled me!

"Agh! Get off me twerp!"

"Not 'till you say you're sorry!"

"Never!"

And then he started TICKLING me!

"OMG STOP!"

*Evil Cackling*

"Someone make him stop!"

"That's what she said!"

"Iggy, I swear I will kill you!"

Everyone was laughing now, me the hardest since Jace wouldn't stop.

Then, Fang came over and started helping him!

Boys…

I was running out of breath, so the threats I had been spewing turned into gibberish and gasps for air.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, they stopped.

"I think Max has learned her lesson about beaning me with rocks."

I answered with a wheeze.

"Alright guys, let's get moving," Alec said with a small laugh.

"I second that motion," I said, attempting to stand up.

But before I got to my feet, Clary came over and shoved me back down.

"Hey! What was that fo…"

A spear shot through the air exactly where my head had been.

Fun time was over, and it was time to kick butt again.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: I can now legally drive a car! (With adult supervision) ^^ So excited!

Oh, and here are a few quotes from my b-day party…

"Megamind has pretty eyes!" "Making him feel sad is like kicking a puppy!"

"Where did splat pig go?" "Splat pig broke…"

"The best thing about being a man is defeating the huns!" "I brought fake blood!" O_o

Clary's POV

Don't ask me how I knew about the arrow, I just had this feeling that something was wrong.

Call it a little voice in my head, if you will.

Also, I kinda wanted to push Max down to keep her away from Jace.

Just saying…

Just moments later, the people attacking us burst from the sand.

Yeah, they were crawling UNDER the sand.

But when they got closer, I realized that they weren't human. They were more like a mix of apes and wolves, if you can imagine that.

Their eyes glinted with a savage that was as old as the Earth itself. Their faces were wolf-like, sharp teeth included. They walked on their hind legs, with a little help from the front leg that wasn't holding a spear or bow.

All in all, a scary sight.

We braced ourselves for battle. Nobody was backing down.

The creatures continued toward us a walking pace.

"Max, what do we do?" Nudge asked quietly.

"Why doesn't anybody ask ME what to do?" Jace said sarcastically.

Being the smart people we are, we didn't answer.

"Just go with it for now, we'll see if we can chase them off." Max answered simply.

"Like that's gonna happen…" Iggy muttered.

Then, they attacked.

Max's POV

Even though the creatures had moved towards us at a leisurely pace, they attacked with a swiftness that I wouldn't have expected.

One ran straight toward me, baring its wolf-like teeth and lashing out with one giant fist.

I dodged nimbly to the left.

Unfortunately, the spear it was holding was in its left hand.

I ducked just in time to avoid the pointed metal tip.

The creature howled in frustration.

"Is it weird that heavy metal music seems to be playing in my head?" Iggy asked, dodging a blow from another creature.

I didn't have time to answer as my creature was attacking again.

This time, I leapt up and over, coming down right behind it. I gave it a swift kick to the back.

There was a horrible snapping sound, and the creature plunged forward onto the ground.

It laid still.

I carefully nudged it with my foot.

Nothing.

No movement, no breath, no fluttering eyelids.

Dead.

"Guys! Aim for the small of their back! It's their weakest point!"

Just moments later, I heard all kinds of snapping and popping.

Beasts fell to the ground all around me.

"Well, that was interesting," Alec said loudly.

I scanned around, searching for any movement.

I didn't see anything, but maybe I was looking in the wrong places.

They HAD popped out of the ground after all.

I quickly looked for any movement on the ground. Any unnatural movement in the sand.

_There._

Tiny little ripples moving in a straight line.

And they were headed towards Nudge.

Jace's POV

After our invigorating little battle, I walked over to Clary.

I had to make sure she was ok, after all.

She had sat down on the ground, head in her hands. She looked pitiful.

"Clary?" I asked quietly.

She looked up, eyes shining.

"What's wrong?"

"Why us?" she asked.

"What?"

"Why us?" she asked again, more loudly this time. "Why do we have to go through this? What did we ever do to deserve this? Why do we have to be the ones running around like paranoid freaks, fearing for our lives?"

I blinked. I certainly hadn't been expecting THAT.

"Well," I said quietly, "Why NOT us?"

She gave me a confused look.

"Out of all the groups, we have the best chance of survival, we have the most experience, and we have special talents. Just think of all this as a great big test of survival."

"But what happens if one of us dies?" She cried.

So THAT'S what she was worried about.

"I don't know. Maybe we'll go back to the present, or maybe we'll be gone forever. There's no telling."

Now Clary looked even worse than she had before.

With a grimace, I sat down next to her.

"Look, Clary, we'll be okay. Just don't give up."

She gave a small nod.

I gave her a light kiss on the cheek, and she looked up with a tiny smile.

For a moment, it seemed like we were in our own little bubble.

A very dirty, sandy bubble, but a nice bubble all the same.

But it couldn't last, because just then there was a shriek of terror.

Max's POV

Before I could utter a cry of warning, a creature exploded from the sand, grabbed Nudge, and began to run away at an inhuman pace.

"Nudge!" I shrieked.

Without checking to see if the others were following, I took off after them.

Behind me, I heard more pounding feet.

I was quickly losing the creature. The sand didn't give me enough traction!

But the air could carry me much quicker.

I spread my wings and launched myself into the air.

"Max! What about the Shadowhunters?" Fang yelled from behind me.

"Stay with them! I'll be right back!"

I was gaining altitude rapidly, slowly gaining back the ground I had lost on foot.

Just when I was angling myself to dive down, the beast dove down into the sand, dragging Nudge with him.

"No!" I cried.

But it was no use.

I landed right where they had disappeared, and there was no way to tell which way they had gone.

I fell to my knees, heart pounding.

"Nudge…"

After what seemed like hours, I slowly trudged back to the others, numb.

As I came into view, they ran toward me, but I didn't pick up my pace.

Fang ran up and pulled me into a hug, the others stood right behind him.

"Wha-What happened to Nudge?" Iggy asked.

"I lost them when the creature went underneath the sand. I can't tell where they went."

I sat down on the cool sand.

The creatures had Nudge, and there was nothing I could do about it.

A/N: Let me know how I'm doing with the whole romance thing! I've only ever dated one boy, and we only went on one date. XD So I don't really know an awful lot about that stuff!


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Hey there peeps :3 Well, I finished reading CoFA, and let me tell you, I was pissed off with the ending! I won't give anything away for those of you who haven't read it yet. Now, enjoy the new chapter!

Max's POV

It was a long, hard night.

Nobody slept, we were all too afraid of attack. Even if I was tired, I wouldn't have been able to.

Those things had Nudge, and we had no idea whether she was even alive right now.

For all we knew, she was dead.

I offered to take all of the night's watches. Everyone protested at first, but I eventually got them to realize that there was no way I was going to sleep.

And although they may have pretended, I don't think they slept much either.

Just as the sun's first rays were peeking over the horizon, Fang came out and sat down next to me. We sat in a comfortable silence as we watched the sun slowly rise.

It was beautiful, even if it did mean another day of trying to survive the desert and the people in it.

I wondered who hadn't been able to survive the night, who had been killed while deep in sleep.

"You know, Nudge might still be alive out there," Fang said quietly, breaking the silence. I sighed.

"Even if she is, we wouldn't have any idea of where to look," I pointed out sadly.

"Well, they showed the kids who died in the sky last night. I say that if we don't see Nudge up there, we go and find her, no matter how long it takes. We don't have anything better to do anyway."

That, my friends, was probably one of the longest speeches Fang has ever given.

I gave him a funny look.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing, in fact, I like your plan," I said, giving him a smile.

He returned it, gave me a small kiss on the cheek, and went to wake the others up.

Glancing in the distance one more time, I slowly stood up, brushed the sand of my pants and stretched.

At least we had a plan now.

I rolled my shoulders and looked back towards the others. We had attempted to sleep on the ground last night, since we were all too lazy to pitch the tent again. But let me just point out that it isn't much fun sitting on the sand all night with nothing to do except replay yesterday's events in your head.

It was kind of depressing really.

But as I looked into the shadows that the sun had not yet touched, I felt a small spark of hope light in my chest. Tonight, we would know whether or not Nudge was still out there. If she was, we would go find her.

But if she wasn't…

Well, if she wasn't, there's always the chance that she got back to present time.

I heard footsteps behind me.

"What's the plan, fearless leader?"

I turned around to see Iggy. He looked totally serious for a change. Not mocking me or anything!

He must have been pretty upset.

"We do our best to survive until tonight," I said loudly enough for everyone to hear. "Then, we wait for the pictures of the fatalities in the sky. If we don't see Nudge up there, we go and look for her."

"What will we do if her picture IS up there?"

I took a deep breath, not wanting to think about that.

"Then we do whatever we can to make sure it doesn't happen to the rest of us."

Everyone nodded.

"Alright then, let's get going!"

Jace's POV

You know it isn't going to be a good day when you don't get anything to eat or drink for breakfast.

So here we are, trudging through the desert, and Max tells us we aren't allowed to eat anything!

Well, when I asked her why not, she simply stated that the dried food we had was for extreme emergencies, and we didn't have any water.

Now, we've been walking for over an hour, and we haven't found a single thing we can try and catch for food. We haven't seen any cactuses we could cut open for water, either.

So naturally, I've been grumpy.

Therefore, it's not my fault that I threw a rock at the back of Iggy's head.

So THERE.

"What the hell? Who threw that?"

Everyone turned to look at me.

"Why do you all blame me when anything bad happens?"

"Hmm, I wonder why," Alec said with a smirk.

"So what if I did through it at him? What are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing," Max said simply. "We can't afford to fight right now. Our first priority is food and water." Then she gave and evil grin. "But that doesn't mean you should let your guard down!"

"Is that a threat, or a promise?"

"Both," Max said, then kept walking.

Clary turned and glared at me.

"What?"

She said nothing, but kicked me in the shin.

"Ow, ow, ow!"

"Decide who you want to be your girlfriend, Jace," she said threateningly.

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Clary didn't answer, just turned away and kept walking.

O_o

"Clary!"

She continued to ignore me.

"Please?"

She spun around.

"You know that I don't love any girl but you!"

Clary's face softened. "I know," she said quietly.

I hugged her tightly. "Don't ever think that it'll ever be any different."

I heard Clary take a deep breath. She buried her head in my neck, and I could feel the wetness from tears. I gave her a quick peck on the head, pushed her away slightly and continued walking.

Max's POV

Well, by now we're all grumpy, hungry and thirsty. I also figure that we'll all be pretty dirty by tomorrow.

Long story short, we just need to find food and water.

"Anybody see anything edible?" I asked, breaking the silence that had stolen our rag-tag group.

Cue various murmurs indicating no luck.

Sigh.

But before I could do anything else, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.

I turned abruptly.

A figure with dark hair was streaking at top speed towards a giant pile of rocks in the distance.

"After that person!" I cried.

We broke into sprints, Jace and I in the lead.

Slowly, we gained ground on the person, who seemed to realize it was being followed.

I spread my wings, determined not to let the kid get away.

As I rose into the sky, I continued to gain speed, and within minutes I was above the kid, who I could now recognize as a girl.

Down we go!

I pulled my wings completely in and tucked my arms at my sides.

Closer… Closer…

I spread my wings out at the last second to slow down just a little. I tackled the girl.

Unfortunately, my speed caused us both to fly forward and do multiple summersaults before coming to a stop. After we stopped rolling, I was able to pin the girl to the ground.

"Let me go!" she cried.

"Why should I?" I asked coldly. "What were you doing? Spying on us? Going to get reinforcements?"

"No!"

"I don't believe you!"

"Well, then why don't you kill me already? Go on! I know you're going to!" She tensed up beneath me.

"I'm not going to kill you if you're not going to kill us." I said softly.

The girl seemed to calm down a little bit.

"I was never going to hurt you or your friends."

"I still don't know why I should believe you."

"I don't have any reason why you should, it's up to you to decide whether or not you trust me."

Hmm.

By now, the others were joining me, most of them sounding like they were about to pass out.

Slowly, I let the girl up. She didn't try to run, just turned to face us. She looked us over.

She stuck her hand out.

"I'm Coco," she said.

Startled, I too put my hand out. "Max."

We shook once, and I turned to introduce the others.

"This is Fang, Iggy, Jace, Alec, Clary and Isabelle."

"Why aren't there eight of you?"

"What?"

"I said, why aren't there eight of you? Did you lose someone?"

I sucked in a breath, remembering what happened to Nudge last night.

"You could say that, although we aren't sure if she's actually dead or not."

"Well, maybe we can help you."

"We?"

Coco gave a small smirk. "You don't honestly think I'm surviving all by myself, do you?"

Silence from all of us.

She laughed. It was a laugh that said that she thought that lots of things were funny, a genuine laugh.

"Come on, let me introduce you to my friends."


	11. Chapter 11

Max's POV

We followed Coco to the pile of rocks. (Which turned out to be a GIANT pile of rocks) It was a lot further away than we originally thought.

When we got there, Coco started making a kind of whistling noise as a signal to the other kids in her group. One by one, five other kids picked their way through the pile. They came from cracks and fissures, one was even partially buried in the sand. All of them came to stand by Coco's side. She was obviously the leader of the group.

"Let me introduce my band of younger kids," Coco said happily. "This is Hana, Deela, Fawn, Bud and Taki." Coco pointed to each one in turn. "All five of them are 13 except for Bud. Some of the youngest ones in the Hunger Games."

"And you just took it upon yourself to take care of them?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'd never forgive myself if I hadn't helped them. Now, you guys must be hungry! Follow me, and I'll get you something to eat and drink."

After resting up, we got to know the other kids better.

Hana was a cute 13 year old with light brown hair and brown eyes. But her looks were some of the only good things about her. If you needed help, Hana wouldn't stick around. She'd be busy saving herself. So I decided I didn't like her very much.

Deela was a blonde headed, blue eyed boy. Tall and strong, Deela was always ready to help out, quite the opposite of Hana. He was also 13.

Now Fawn, she was something else entirely. 13, Fawn was quiet and reserved, there was just something majestic about her. Something inside you just wanted to do whatever she asked you to. She had chocolate colored skin, tawny colored hair and bright blue eyes. I'd bet my money that if she somehow survived this, she'd one day hold a place in power.

Bud was the only 12 year old in the group; she was also really short for her age. She had straw colored hair, green eyes and a charming smile. She seemed to be able to cheer anybody up.

Finally, Taki looked almost like a younger version of Fang. 13, he had jet black hair and green eyes. He also seemed to have a slight problem with his temper, but he was friendly enough. Oh, and he was Hana's stepbrother.

So there you have it. Full descriptions of all the new kids we met. Now all we had to do was wait until evening to see whether or not were going after Nudge.

As the sun began to set, our little group began to get tense. Every couple minutes I would glance up at the ever darkening sky, searching for any pictures that may have appeared.

Around about the 20th time I looked at the sky, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Constantly looking at the sky won't make time go any faster."

I turned to see Coco looking at me sadly.

"I understand how you feel, but the more you look at the sky the longer it'll seem until you actually get the information you need."

I took a deep breath and pulled my gaze from the sky. "You're right. Thanks."

Coco just smiled and left.

Resisting the urge to look up again, I stood up and began pacing. This probably wasn't much better than staring up at the sky.

I forced myself to stop pacing.

_Come on, Max. Do something constructive with your time._

I looked at the ground. Strangely enough, there was a stick sitting there. How on Earth was it there when there were no trees nearby?

Shrugging, I picked up the stick and sat down on the cool sand. I took a knife out of my backpack and began to sharpen the stick. I wasn't sure if it was constructive, but it beat staring at the sky or pacing.

Sure enough, time flew by and before I knew it, the sky was lighting up and music was playing. I dropped the now sharp stick and threw the knife into my backpack. I stood up and watched the sky.

One by one, images of children that had died today lit up the night; kids who never should have been put through something like this.

Nudge's picture never appeared in the sky.

I let out a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, I had been so worried I had forgotten to count the number of kids.

Thankfully, Coco had remembered.

"Thirteen more kids died today, that means there's 60 left that we need to worry about."

"Nudge wasn't up there, Coco," I said quickly. "Will you help us rescue her?"

Coco nodded. "I said I would, didn't I?"

"Great! Let's get going."

"Alright! Just a minute, we need to gather up our stuff." Coco turned toward the pile of rocks. "Deela! Taki! Gather up our food supplies! Fawn, Bud and Hana, you get the weapons and any other odds and ends."

The five kids began to load various things into packs. Within minutes they were ready to head out.

"Alright then!" Coco said with a grin. "Let's go find your missing girl, shall we?"

A/N: Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been super busy with school! I just have one week left and then I'll be back to updating regularly. Also, Zim will rule us all!


	12. Chapter 12

Max's POV

We set off into the cool desert night in search of Nudge.

It was slow going because the majority of us couldn't fly, but we made the best of it.

About ten minutes into the journey, I stopped abruptly. "Wait a second. Do we even have a plan other than just roaming around aimlessly in search of Nudge? Because that doesn't sound like a very good idea."

"Amazing deduction, Sherlock," Iggy scoffed.

I resisted the urge to punch him.

"Well…" Coco began.

"Well, what?"

"After you described the creatures to me, I realized that I had seen a bunch of them in one place before. I thought it might be their camp, but I'm not positive."

"Well, lead the way then."

As Coco took the lead, doubts began to whirl in my head. Was this girl really trying to help us? Or was she just leading us to our deaths? The other kids hardly spoke to us, but that didn't necessarily mean anything…

"Worried?"

I looked sideways.

One of the girls, Fawn I believe, was walking next to me.

"Huh?"

"You look worried, or maybe slightly untrusting. Do you think that Coco isn't who she says she is?"

Whoa.

"How did you…"

Fawn shrugged. "My mom says it's a gift. But I just think that I'm really observant. People really aren't that hard to understand."

"Well, I've never met anyone who was able to read emotions as well as you just did."

Fawn gave a small smile. "Thanks. Oh, and don't worry. Coco really just wants the best for everyone. I think it's her personal goal to save as many kids in the games as possible. You can trust her."

I decided to trust Fawn, considering she basically just read my mind.

"Ok, thanks."

"You are very welcome."

Fawn quietly drifted over to Hana and began whispering quietly to her.

What an interesting girl.

Magnus' POV

It was quite interesting to watch the children fight to the death on TV.

I won't say that I liked it, but it WAS interesting.

The Shadowhunters and the Flock were doing quite well, and seemed to be staying well away from all of the bloodthirsty little children that were killing everything they saw.

I saw movement in my peripheral vision.

"Look! It's Nudge! They haven't killed her! She's still alive!"

Angel was pointing toward the TV set as if I couldn't see it.

Sure enough, the camera was zoomed in on little Nudge's face. It was tear-streaked and sunken, but very much alive.

"Oh, I hope they can get to her before they hurt her anymore!" Gazzy exclaimed.

I said nothing.

A thought had just occurred to me.

You see, I had been trying to figure out how to get us back to the present ever since we arrived in this terrible future. I had had many ideas, but none of them had worked.

For the past few days, I had had no ideas whatsoever.

But I did now.

What would happen if we died?

Would we die here, or would we simply go back to the present?

But more realistically, how could I test my theory? Surely nobody in their right mind would volunteer to be a test subject in a test where the only two options are life and death.

And if I tested it myself, and it failed, who else would there be to help the others get back to the present?

But maybe that was a risk I'd have to take.

Although, if Nudge was going to die anyway, why kill myself to test the theory?

I'd just have to hope that if she was going to die, they would show it; because if they did, then I would be able to see whether or not my theory was correct.

But just then, I was snapped back into reality.

"Hey, look, there in the corner of the screen. Is that a girl?"

I focused back on the TV screen. Angel was pointing at the bottom right hand corner. Sure enough, a young girl was slowly creeping into view.

"Lady and gentleman, I think Nudge's rescue has just arrived."

Coco's POV

I had done it. I had found the wolf-ape camp.

In the flickering firelight, I could see a girl tied to a post half buried in the sand.

_That must be her!_

I could feel the others behind me, waiting for my command to attack.

But I had a better idea.

I turned around toward the others.

"Well?" Max asked impatiently.

"I think it would be best to have one or two of us sneak up from behind and try to rescue her without being noticed. They aren't paying very good attention to her."

"Well, what if a couple of us provided a distraction?" Clary asked.

Jace nodded. "That could work. That would make sure that they weren't looking at Nudge."

"Alright, sounds good," I said. "I think Iggy, Max and Fang should provide the distraction, because they can fly away if they need to. Jace and I can go and get Nudge, and the rest of you can stay back here, ready to help any of us should we need it."

The others nodded.

Wow, I had expected at least some sort of argument.

"All right, let's go."

"Get ready, Jace, Max and the others should be starting the distraction any second now, and every second counts."

"Yeah, I got it."

Sure enough, just moments later, the three bird kids swooped down from the sky and dive bombed a couple of the ape creatures.

With a loud shriek, all of the monsters ran toward the bird kids, shouting and waving various weapons.

"Go!" I whispered.

Jace and I took off toward Nudge, who looked wide awake and hopeful.

I reached her first and began to untie the knots that were holding her to the pole.

"Move!" Jace said urgently.

I moved to make room for Jace, who had a pocket knife out and was proceeding to cut the ropes holding Nudge.

We had just gotten Nudge down when we were spotted.

"Coco, Jace, Nudge! RUN!"

I looked up to see a dozen creatures running toward us.

We took off running.

Max's POV

We had done the best we could, but we just weren't able to keep the monsters occupied for long enough to let the other three escape.

There was no way they were going to make it.

"Fang! Iggy! We have to help them!"

"How?" Fang yelled.

"Keep dive bombing the wolf creature things!" I cried, beginning to dive down.

Further away, I could see the rest of the group running, too. There wasn't anything they could do anyway.

I just hoped we could help.

Then, I had an idea.

Instead of aiming down at the mass of fur and weapons, I aimed toward our three running friends.

Fang and Iggy realized what I was doing and quickly followed suit.

Soon enough, Iggy had pulled up beside me and was helping me lift Jace into the air. Nudge took off with us as well.

I took a quick glace back…

I wished I hadn't.

Coco had hit the ground and was quickly being swallowed up by the hoard of animals. Fang was in the air only a few meters from where she had been standing. He looked completely helpless.

I didn't stop. No matter how much I wanted to. I couldn't let them get any more of us.

Moments later, Fang was flying beside me, and cannon shot rang through the air.


	13. Chapter 13

Max's POV

How had the rescue gone so wrong?

None of us said anything as we followed the others who were on foot. They were high-tailing it out of there as fast as they possibly could.

How was I going to tell them that we had lost Coco?

Before too long, the fire had become only a glow in the distance, and I figured that we were far enough away to stop.

"Let's land, guys," I said just loud enough for them to hear.

We landed in front of the others who were all panting and looked about ready to pass out.

"Did we do it?" Alec asked. "Is everyone ok?"

Taki stepped in front of Alec and glared at him. "Of course not!" He yelled. "Didn't you hear the cannon fire? That means someone died!"

Taki turned to me. "So who was it? Who did we lose?" He was already looking around, taking a head count.

"Coco," I said quietly. "She tripped. The creatures were on her before we could get to her. I'm so sorry."

"What?" Bud wailed. She fell to the ground, weeping.

Hana had a hand over her mouth, her eyes glassy.

Deela and Fawn both just stood there silently. They had both paled, though.

Taki looked furious. "It's your fault!" He yelled, gesturing toward our entire group. "If you hadn't come along, Coco would still be alive!" With that, Taki spun around and headed over to the other four kids.

I was speechless. Thankfully, Jace spoke for me.

"Hey! Listen up, you little punk!" He strode over to Taki, looking about ready to punch him. "We didn't ask for your help! Coco offered! We would have gladly left you all alone! Don't blame us for something that would have eventually happened anyway! More than likely, we're all going to die in this place!"

Now, everyone was speechless.

But I found something to say.

"Not while I'm here, we're not."

I received curious looks.

"I'm going to save as many kids as possible. This isn't our world; our world is possibly hundreds of years in the past. So I'm not going to play by the rules."

"I knew you were different," Fawn said quietly.

"You did, did you?" I asked her.

Fawn nodded. "I wasn't sure how you were different, I just knew that you were. And now I know. You're all from the past."

I nodded. "We're not sure how we got here, or even how to get back. Right now, we're just trying to survive.

"You… you're all from the past?" Deela asked, speaking up for the first time.

"Yep," I said.

"What's it like? Is it nice?" Bud asked.

"Mostly. It's much different from the time you guys live in," Iggy said.

"And how did you four get wings anyway?" Hana asked.

"That's a long story," I said. "For now, let's find some place to spend the night. We need to get further away from the creatures."

"You mean, we can stay with you?" Bud said, sounding relieved.

"Of course!" I exclaimed. "I wouldn't leave you guys defenseless! Now come on."

I began to lead the way into the desert.

Magnus' POV

I sat back in my chair. Nudge had survived, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Everyone would have been devastated had she died, but I would have also been able to see if my theory was correct. Now I wouldn't know.

"They did it!" Gazzy exclaimed happily.

"But, Gazzy," Angel began quietly. "They lost Coco. She died saving Nudge."

Gazzy frowned. "Oh, yeah," he said unhappily.

"A truly noble girl," I said, attempting to lighten the mood.

"Yeah, she was selfless," Angel said sadly. "All of the really good people wind up dying."

Angel was starting to become a downer.

Suddenly, the TV turned off, signaling that we could go to bed if we wished.

"Finally," Gazzy said, yawning. "I'm going to bed, you coming, Angel?"

Angel nodded.

The siblings walked into the bedroom and shut the door.

I decided to light a candle just in case the power was shut off.

I sat back down on the chair, thinking. Jace had been right when he had said that they were all likely to die in the games. I would have my chance to see if my theory was true eventually. There was no way all of them would survive the Hunger Games.

Max's POV

We spent the night inside the really cramped tent again.

We always had two or three people on guard at a time, to help keep each other awake and to give the others more room in the tent.

Clary, Iggy and I took the first watch.

I decided to use the time to get to know Clary better.

"So, what's it like, being a Shadowhunter?" I asked.

"Well, I'm not even close to being fully trained yet. I haven't even known about the Shadowhunters that long."

"Really? I just assumed…"

"Yeah, my story is much different from Alec, Isabelle and Jace's story.

"Would you mind enlightening us then?" Iggy asked.

"Sure," Clary said. She then went on explaining her story. By the time she was finished, our watch was over, and I definitely respected Clary more.

When I woke up, light was streaming through the front of the tent. I blinked my eyes into focus and carefully sat up.

I managed to make it outside without stepping on too many people, and the people I did step on didn't seem to notice.

Outside, Jace and Alec were swapping jokes and digging inside their packs looking for food.

"Hey, knuckleheads," I called.

They glanced up at me.

"There's plenty of food in my pack," I said, tossing it to them.

Alec caught it and opened it.

"Ugh, I don't want to eat anymore energy bars!" he complained.

"Well, I can always try and catch some animal," I said, rolling my eyes.

"I don't like either idea, thank you very much," Jace said. "But since we have energy bars now, I'll take one."

Alec tossed Jace a bar and reached for one of his own. Then he tossed the bag back to me.

I grabbed the first bar I picked up and opened it.

I bit it.

Yuck, fakey chocolate flavor.

I choked down the rest of the bar and tossed the wrapper in my backpack.

Time to face a new day.


	14. Chapter 14

Max's POV

We trekked through the desert, no particular destination in mind. I figured that as long as we kept moving, it would be harder for people to follow us. Coco's former kids were silent, still upset over her loss.

Not a single word had been said since we all got up this morning, and the silence was beginning to irate me. I sighed.

"Would it kill someone to actually attempt to start a conversation?" I asked nobody in particular.

"It might," Isabelle pointed out. "If we don't talk, there's a better chance no one will notice us and want to kill us."

The others murmured their agreement.

"Sheesh, fine, I see your point," I grumbled.

We all fell back into silence, and I had to be content with our brief interaction.

Sometime later, I began to notice shadows circling above our heads. I looked up.

_Vultures._

But why were they circling? None of us was about to keel over and die, were we?

I looked back at the others, making sure I hadn't lost anyone. Nobody appeared to be struggling, so why were the vultures there?

"Nervous?"

I jumped in surprise. I hadn't noticed that Fang was now walking beside me. I slapped his shoulder. "Seriously! You have **GOT** to stop doing that!"

"Doing what?" he asked, curious.

"Sneaking up on me!"

"Who said I was sneaking?"

I groaned.

"But in all seriousness, you seem a little on edge, what's wrong?" he asked in a concerned voice.

"There's vultures circling us," I said, gesturing to the sky.

"That doesn't mean any of us are dying," Fang said casually. "They might just think we are."

"Well, I don't like it," I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

"They weren't created for you to like them," Fang said, amusement in his voice. "But, if you want, we could always fly up there and chase them away."

"That's not a bad idea," I said casually. "And it would make me feel better."

"Alright then, I'll let the others know." Fang turned around and headed toward Iggy and Nudge who were deep in their own private conversation.

I, meanwhile, announced our intentions. "The Flock and I are going to go chase away the vultures that have decided to stalk us," I said out loud. The rest of the group glanced up curiously, then looked back at me.

"It shouldn't take too much time, and we'll continue to follow you the entire time."

"Well, we could always just stop here and take a quick break," Jace said. Several of the others murmured agreement.

"Well, I guess that's fine, too. Just be on the lookout for other contestants," I said.

"We'll be fine, there's safety in numbers," Alec said, waving his hand.

I took off with the others close behind, heading toward the evil birds who I'm sure would love it if we all fell over dead.

"Charge!" I yelled, beginning to enjoy myself.

Iggy laughed and Nudge flew faster. Fang just smirked, but that was as good as a grin to me.

I flew up and into the group of vultures and began beating them with my fists and feet, whooping with reckless abandon.

If only we had been more careful.

By now, we should have realized that just about all the things you saw in the Hunger Games were dangerous, so why didn't we stop to think that these vultures might not have been ordinary vultures?

That's a good question.

Jace's POV

I watched grumpily as the bird kids soared into the sky. I could only imagine what it was like to be able to have that much freedom. As much as I enjoyed hunting demons, there was probably nothing that compared to being able to fly whenever you wanted.

I laid down on the hot sand (ouch) and followed their progress in the sky. I watched as they began to knock vultures around.

I watched as they got attacked.

I sat bolt upright as I heard Nudge scream.

"What's happening?" Clary asked, looking up and shading her eyes from the sun.

"The stupid birds are attacking them!" I shouted.

The bird kids began to descend, their forms growing bigger and bigger as they got closer and closer to the ground. The birds, whatever they really were, followed in pursuit.

"Get ready to kick some birdie butt!" Alec exclaimed.

We all got into ready stances, even the younger kids. Although, looking at Deela, they all may have already had experience with fighting.

As the bird kids came to a rough landing, we began to fend off the monstrous birds. I mean, the things were freakin' huge! And when I got up close and personal with one, I saw that they had sharp canine teeth in their beaks.

So they were definitely **NOT** vultures. Or at least, they weren't normal ones.

I grabbed a bird by its ugly, skinny neck and chucked it a couple feet away. It stood, squawked at me, and flew away.

One down, a dozen to go.

I watched as Alec snapped one of the bird's necks, leaving its broken form lying crumpled on the ground.

Hey, maybe now we could eat something besides energy bars!

Anyway…

It didn't take us long to dispatch the rest of the birds as they were not meant for fighting on the ground. All but two of them escaped, leaving us with two now dead monster birds.

Taki cleared his throat. "Hey, do you think these things are edible?" he asked.

Max shrugged. "I don't see why not, as long as we cook 'em for long enough.

"Finally, something besides energy bars!" Alec said, doing a fist pump.

"Yeah, because there's nothing better than fried, mutant chicken," Iggy said, patting his stomach.

We all chuckled.

"But wait, how the hell are we going to start a fire? There's no wood around here!" Alec exclaimed.

Hmm, good question.

We all looked at each other.

"Well, there's always the option of dragging the things until we find a place to cook them…" Max suggested.

That idea wasn't appealing to anyone.

"So what, we just, leave them here and continue to eat energy bars?" I asked sadly.

"It's either that or bringing them with us," Max sighed.

"I guess I'd rather eat energy bars," Nudge said.

"Yeah, me too," Hana piped up.

"Alright, then let's keep on going, shall we?" Max asked, gesturing toward the open desert in front of us.

I shrugged.

"Lead the way, fearless leader," Iggy said.

Max rolled her eyes but began out trek through the desert once more.

A/N: Wow, I am really starting to run out of ideas! Although, I can feel the end coming quickly… Any ideas from you guys, or something you'd like to see in the story before I end it? Let me know in the comments! Oh, and one other thing… I put an Invader Zim reference in this chapter, if you can tell me what is said and who said it, I'll give you a cupcake!

*holds up cupcake*


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Sorry I haven't been updating much, I've been working on my Invader Zim fanfic like crazy. I've finished it, so now I'll have more time for this one! ^^

~!#$%^&*()_+

Max's POV

As the hot desert sun began to set we grew more anxious. There was this feeling of chaos in the air, but I couldn't quite place it.

"Is anyone else feeling a little off?" Iggy asked.

Almost everyone said they were.

"I think something bad is going to happen," Fawn said thoughtfully. "We should be prepared."

I looked at her as if she was crazy. In fact, I may have thought she was crazy if she hadn't been right about so many things.

"Well, I don't know that something bad is going to happen, but I think we should be prepared, especially if we're all feeling a little weird," Clary said. "Better safe than sorry you know."

I nodded. "I think we should have at least four people on guard at all times tonight, just in case."

Nobody argued.

Just then, music began to play and lights shimmered in the sky.

"Alright, let's see how many kids are left," Jace said, sitting down.

We focused all our attention on the sky. Pictures of kids young and old flashed by and I made sure I counted every single one.

Then, Coco's picture shone in the sky. Her bright smile made me feel even more guilty that she had died helping us.

Next to me, Bud sniffled.

Not knowing what else to do, I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and brought her closer.

"It's ok," I said quietly. "I'll make sure you're all ok."

!#$%^&*()_

When the final picture faded from the sky, Jace stood up and announced the number of opponents left.

"30 more, including us," he said quietly.

"Max, what happens if we wind up being the only ones left? Are we going to have to kill each other?" Nudge asked, sounding scared.

"Never. Nothing they do can make us kill each other, and that's final," I said sternly.

The wind kicked up and sand began to blow in my eyes.

"Ugh, stupid wind," Alec said grumpily.

I spit sand out of my mouth. "Yuck."

Isabelle had frozen where she was standing. "Guys, what is that?" she asked, sounding worried.

We followed her gaze. Not far in the distance was an orange glow.

Iggy sniffed the air. He too froze.

"I smell smoke," he said quietly.

"Smoke, from, like, a fire?" Nudge asked.

"Yeah."

"But that's impossible! There's not enough vegetation out here to fuel a fire!" I exclaimed.

"You forget, we're in a controlled environment," Taki said. "The rules here aren't the same as the rules in an actual desert."

"He's right," Deela said. "In the Hunger Games, anything is possible."

I watched the glow closely. It was getting bigger, and fast. I made a split second decision.

"Run!"

~!#$%^&*()_+

We tore through the night, moving as fast as we could on our exhausted legs. What I would have given to just fly out of there…

I risked a glance back. By now I could tell that it was indeed a fire.

"We can't outrun this thing!" Jace yelled.

"Then what do you propose we do?" Isabelle shouted back.

Jace didn't answer.

The sound of a cannon rang through the air and I almost panicked. I looked around to make sure we were all still here.

We were.

I began running the numbers through my head. _There's 13 of us, so subtract that from 30. That leaves 17. Minus one more…_

We only had 16 more opponents to worry about.

Yeah, here I was, running from a fire, doing math to see how many more kids we had to worry about.

"Max!"

I looked back fearfully.

Hana's foot had gotten caught in a hole. It was twisted at an unnatural angle.

_Shit._

The others had stopped running and were waiting for my instructions.

"Keep going!" I shouted, running toward Hana.

They reluctantly continued on.

I reached Hana and immediately began to try and free her foot. She kept looking at the fire in horror. No matter how hard I tried, I just could not get her foot free.

Tears were spilling down Hana's face. "Go!" she whimpered. "Don't die trying to save me! It's no use! If you don't go now then we'll both die!"

I looked at Hana in shock. "But…"

"Go!" she shrieked.

I couldn't argue further because the fire was upon us. With a quick glance back I shot into the sky.

The canon rang in the air once more, signaling yet another unnecessary death.

But I couldn't be sentimental now. I had to get back to the others and help them.

~!#$%^&*()_+

Jace's POV

Only a few minutes later Max landed next to us, Hana-less.

"She's gone?" Taki whispered.

"I'm sorry," Max said quietly. "I tried my best."

Taki looked horrified at the loss of his step-sister.

We had managed to outpace the fire. It seemed as if there was an invisible boundary between where we were standing and the fire.

And, knowing that we were in the Hunger Games, there probably was.

Taki sat down, hugging his knees to his chest.

Max looked devastated that she had failed to rescue Hana. I couldn't even imagine how that felt.

Fang went over and attempted to comfort her, but she shrugged him off.

"Max, we all have to die someday. It just so happens that today was Hana's turn to leave this world," Fawn said quietly.

I marveled at the little girl. She may have had the appearance of a 13 year old, but she was wise beyond her years.

Max looked at Fawn thoughtfully. "I guess…"

"Hey, think about it this way, wherever she is now has got to be better than being here," Alec said. "She doesn't have to worry about anything anymore."

"That's true," Max said sadly. "But that doesn't mean I feel any better."

"Max, by the time this whole thing is over, nearly a hundred kids will have died. There's not much we can do about it," Iggy said, sounding slightly frustrated. "Stop moping. We need you to be at your best otherwise those of us still alive won't stand a chance."

Max's gaze hardened. "You're right, Iggy." She took a deep breath. "I can't give up yet."

"Great," I said without much enthusiasm. "So, who's on watch first?"

~!#$%^&*()

A/N: Here is the Invader Zim reference from the last chapter…

"Well, I don't like it," I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

"They weren't created for you to like them," Fang said, amusement in his voice.

XD Here's the conversation from Zim…

"Well, I don't like it!"

"We didn't build it for you to like it…"

"Well, I should like it!"

Until next chapter…


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Hello people! Alright, a new chapter, but I'd like to say one thing…

I KNOW there's at least a couple of you who read this story… but I rarely get comments anymore! On my other story, I got comments every time I updated! That's why I updated as quickly as I did! So, long story short, the more comments I get, the faster I update, mmk? ^^

Max's POV

I had taken the last watch of the night, along with Isabelle and Taki. We had sat quietly for awhile, but something was bugging me.

I glanced over at Taki. He seemed so sad.

_Well no duh! _ I inwardly told myself. _He just lost his step-sister! You'd be upset if someone in the Flock died, no?_

I grimaced. I wanted to comfort him, but I didn't know how. Taki was still basically a stranger to me, and I wasn't sure if he felt like being comforted at the moment.

Taki seemed to realize that I was watching him at that moment, because he looked up and glared at me.

"You have a problem or something?" he asked angrily.

Yikes.

"No, I was just thinking about how it would feel to be in your position right now," I said matter-of-factly. "So forgive me for sympathizing." I turned away.

Yeah, maybe that was a little childish, but it felt good.

Taki said nothing, and when I turned around, he had gone back to glaring at the ground. Isabelle looked sad.

I sighed, this was such a difficult time in our lives. What a terrible thing to do, thrusting innocent children into a battle arena where the rules are simple. Kill, or be killed. No one should ever have to go through this.

I glanced a Taki again and noticed a single tear rolling down his cheek. Ugh, now I felt absolutely terrible.

"Taki…"

"I don't want your sympathy!" he burst out suddenly. He stood up, glaring at me. "And don't say anything like, 'I understand what you're going through right now,' because you don't! The only people who understand how I feel are the other kids out there who have lost siblings!"

Taki stopped shouting. His heavy breathing eventually gave way to sobs, and he sat down on the ground again, hugging his knees to his chest.

My mouth hung open. I had never expected Taki to flip out like that. But then again, I didn't know him very well…

Taki's shouting had awakened the others, and one by one they came out of the tent, rubbing their eyes and wondering what was going on.

"What happened?" Alec asked.

Taki was rocking back and forth on his feet, crying harder than he was before.

Fawn understood immediately and rushed over, using a soothing voice and doing her best to comfort him.

"Taki, it's alright… Hana is in a better place now… Shh… The rest of us are still here… It's alright…"

Amazingly enough, Taki began to calm down. Before much longer, his sobs had stopped and he was silent once again. Was thing was certain, Fawn definitely had a way with people.

Nobody said anything, they just looked at each other curiously, wondering what to do now.

The sun began to rise, casting an orange glow on everyone. We all turned to watch.

It really was beautiful, even in this horrible place.

The sun was all the way up in the sky before anyone said anything.

"Well, now that we're all up, should we eat something and head out? Or have our plans changed?" Iggy asked.

"Oh, your plans have changed all right."

We spun around to see who had spoken.

Standing there, not 200 feet from us, were the remaining 16 children in the arena. They didn't look innocent at all. In fact, they looked blood-thirsty.

Jace's POV

These kids meant business, and by business, I mean they wanted us dead. Everyone of them had a weapon. And get this, their clothes were blood stained with different designs, almost as if they had used the blood of the kids they had killed as paint.

It was incredibly creepy.

The kid standing in front was decking in black with red handprints all over his outfit. I had no doubt that the red was blood. His hair was a dark brown and was cut messily. You could only see one of his eyes, the other was hidden by his side bangs.

"So, we finally found you, the group who has managed to elude us since day one," the kid standing in front, who seemed to be the leader, said. "Finally, we can get rid of you."

"Oh yeah? Well, we have a few tricks up our sleeves!" Alec stated. And right on cue, Max and the rest of the bird kids spread their wings. Quite an impressive display.

Several of the kids' eyes widened. One or two took a step back. But the leader of the group looked unfazed.

"Pshh, you think your wings scare us?" he said, rolling his eyes.

"Well," I said, pulling out my stele, "If those don't scare you, then I guess we'll have to fight. If you'll just excuse us for one second…"

I walked over to Alec, Isabelle and Clary. We began to draw runes over each other as quickly as possible, just in case these kids didn't care about a fair fight.

I heard a couple kids whispering amongst each other. "What are they doing?"

I smirked. I only wished that we had some seraph blades with us. THAT would have scared them.

Finally, we had various runes drawn on us and were ready for anything. We turned back to the other kids.

I smirked at their bewildered faces. "Come at us, bro!"

The leader, also looking confused, shook his head and carefully removed his emotions from his face, leaving it blank. After looking us up and down, he nodded.

"Fine, we fight. Districts two and three, attack!"

~!#$$%^&*(

A/N: And there I leave you until the next chapter :3 And if you can believe it, I wrote this entire chapter while listening to Caramelldansen!


	17. Chapter 17

Max's POV

We charged.

So, these little punks thought they could take us? They were badly mistaken. But there was one thing I wanted to avoid. I didn't want to kill anybody. Even if they looked blood-thirsty, they were still only kids.

Kids with blood covered outfits.

Just as I reached the first kid I leapt into the air, causing him to stumble. I came back around, aiming a kick to the back of the legs.

The kid must have seen me coming because he dodged out of the way. I snarled in frustration. This was going nowhere. I soared higher, trying to get a feel for what was going on. The Shadowhunters were doing their best to protect the four younger kids while Iggy, Fang, Nudge and I were on the offensive.

I folded my wings back and dove towards a kid absorbed in a fight with Isabelle. I tackled him, sending him face first in the sand. I pulled my fist back and swung, feeling it connect firmly with the back of his skull. He went limp. I assumed he was unconscious.

Better unconscious than dead.

I took to the air again, looking for another kid to take out. My eyes scanned the ground, searching for the bloodthirsty leader of this rag-tag group. Maybe, if I got rid of him, the others would leave…

I found him; he was in a fist fight with Jace. The leader's spear was lying broken on the ground several feet from him. It looked like Jace was beating the tar out of him.

I smirked. _Not so tough without your weapons, eh?_

But the smirk was wiped right off my face as I saw a kid sneaking up from behind, knife clutched in his hand.

I was too far away to do anything, but luckily, Alec wasn't.

He rushed forward, smacking the knife from the kid's hand. But the kid only grinned.

Before Alec could do anything, another kid had snuck up from behind and had run him through with a spear.

I gasped, dropping about a hundred feet.

Alec was finished.

But as he fell forward onto his knees, a strange thing happened. He simply disappeared. It was like he was never there.

Magnus' POV

We all gasped when Alec was stabbed. Angel almost immediately broke into sobs. But I, however, leaned forward as far as I could to see what happened next.

As soon as his knees touched the ground, Alec disappeared into thin air. There were no traces.

I smiled. Now I knew that my theory was correct.

"Magnus, are you, smiling?" Gazzy asked. "Alec just died!"

I turned to the confused child. "Ah, that is not the case, dear little Gazzy. You see, he just vanished into thin air and left no traces. This is all the proof I needed to prove my theory."

"And what exactly _is_ your theory?" Angel asked.

"You won't like it, but I suppose I'd better tell you. You see, several days ago I came up with an idea. That idea being a possible way to return to our time period. And, unfortunately, it seems that the only way to get back is to die in this time period."

Gazzy and Angels looked at me as if I were crazy, which, I admit, was entirely possible.

"Please, _please_ tell me you're joking," Gazzy whimpered.

"I am not. Look on the bright side, at least we don't have to worry about the others anymore. If they die, they go back home, simple as that."

"But, but, dying is painful!" Angel cried.

"I understand that," I said, trying to be patient. "But our death here is required to return home. As I see it, a little pain is worth it."

"I don't know about that…" Gazzy said, turning his attention back to the TV.

"Don't you want to go home?" I asked.

"Well, yeah, but I don't want to die, either," Gazzy answered, only half paying attention.

"It's entirely your choice, Gasman. Stay here, or go back."

Gazzy and Angel looked conflicted.

"You don't have to decide now, of course. Not until the end of the Hunger Games. That's when I'll expect you to have made your decision."

They nodded, already going over the pros and cons.

I had already made mind up, of course. I would be going home.

~!#$%^&

The battle went quickly after Alec disappeared.

After realizing that the kids we were fighting were perfectly ready to kill, we became much more brutal, the Shadowhunters especially. More than one kid didn't survive the fight.

After all the kids had either been chased off or killed, we did a head count. Only two of us hadn't made it through the battle. Alec being one and Deela being the other.

Taki was in a grim mood again once he realized he had lost another friend. There were only three of the original six left.

Isabelle was crying, not even bothering to try and control herself. But after I had seen Alec disappear, I wasn't so sure that he was gone forever.

"Isabelle, listen. There is absolutely no sign of Alec, no blood, no footprints or anything! I watched it happen, he completely disappeared! I don't think he's dead, if anything, I think he may be back in the present by now."

Isabelle's breathing slowed slightly. "Do, do you really think so?" she asked hopefully.

"I think that's what happened," I said, trying to lighten the mood. "It even makes sense to me. We're not really supposed to even be here right now, so how could anything kill us if we're not in our correct time period? We were meant to die in the present, not in the future."

Isabelle had stopped crying by now. "Yeah, I guess it does make some sense. I just hope you're right."

~!#$%^&*

A/N: I hate to admit it, but I'm getting bored with this story :'( But thankfully, it's almost over. Especially since Magnus has now figured out how to get back to the present. And yes, Alec is still alive. He's one of my favorite, so there's no way I'd kill him off!

So, until next time…

~Kota


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: I just wanted to say that I will be finishing this story, no matter what. This was my first story on here, and I am determined to finish it! It's almost over, anyway. Enjoy!

~!#$%^&*()

Max's POV

I had done some serious thinking. By now I was positive that Alec was ok, and I was pretty sure that the only way to get back to the present was to die. Painful, but necessary. So, I had devised a plan. We were going to go out by attacking the remaining kids, getting rid of as many of them as possible so that there would still be hope for Taki, Bud and Fawn. If one of them made it through the Hunger Games I would consider this plan a success. Not that I'd be around to know whether or not they made it, of course. Most likely, we'd all get sent back to the present in the battle.

Now all I had to do was convince the others.

I was on the first watch with Isabelle, so I decided to try and convince her first.

"Hey, Isabelle," I said to get her attention.

"Mm?" she asked, sounding sleepy. She to, was convinced that Alec was alright.

"I was thinking, we want to get out of this place as soon as possible, right? Well, why don't we get out of here by fighting to help the younger three kids?"

Isabelle looked thoughtful for a few minutes. "That's a good idea. We can take out a bunch of the competition for them, give them a better chance to make it through."

"My thoughts exactly."

"I like it," Isabelle said with a smile. "Our watch is almost over, so why don't we try and convince Fang and Iggy when we switch?"

"Good idea," I said.

So when we went to wake up Iggy and Fang we told them about my plan. They agreed that it was a good idea and promised to let Jace and Clary know about it when it was their turn to watch.

So I went to bed feeling good about the whole thing. Yeah, it was a painful way back to our time, but we could handle a little pain.

~!#$%^&*

The bright desert sun awoke me. I stretched and exited the tent. Everyone else was already gathered in a circle, excitedly discussing the plan. As I joined the conversation the questions began.

"So, when do we start?" Jace asked, shoving an energy bar into his mouth.

"Well, I figured as soon as we find the remaining kids," I said, shrugging. "No point in wasting time with the whole thing."

The others nodded in agreement. Taki, Bud and Fawn looked slightly uncomfortable.

"What are we going to do when you guys are gone?" Bud asked quietly.

"Well, you guys will stay together, and, hopefully, you'll make it through this thing," I said, trying to give her confidence.

Bud didn't look convinced but she said nothing more.

"Well, let's get moving. Which way did the kids run yesterday?" I asked.

"In, uh, that way direction," Jace said, pointing west.

"Well, then let's head in that way direction!" Iggy said, getting to his feet.

We all stood, some more sluggishly than others.

"Come on, slow pokes!" I said, helping Nudge to her feet.

This comment was received with glares and eye rolls.

Once everyone had stood we began walking, and this time, we were on a mission.

Magnus' POV

"Good, they've figured it out as well," I said to myself.

"Does this mean we're gonna have to… die?" Gazzy asked, slightly fearful.

"Yes, unless you'd rather stay here by yourself, which you're perfectly welcome to do."

Gazzy shook his head, obviously not thrilled with the idea of staying by himself.

"But how will we do it?" Angel asked, her voice breaking.

I can say that this was easily one of the strangest conversations I had ever had. And believe me, I've had some VERY strange conversations. It's not every day that you discuss how to commit suicide with little kids.

"Well, I suppose we could always commit some terrible, unforgivable crime and be sentenced to death," I said, mulling the idea over.

"How about let's not and say we did," Gazzy said, looking pale.

"Well, we could always just ask someone to do it for us," Angel said thoughtfully. "We could ask them to come in and kill us while we're asleep one night, that way we wouldn't feel a thing!"

"That's a good idea, but then I wouldn't be able to sleep a wink!" Gazzy said.

"Well, I'd rather that happen then having to kill myself," Angel said.

"I, for one, like Angel's idea. We can find someone, explain our situation, and ask them to randomly pick a night this week to finish us off. Then, we'll wake up and be back in our natural time!" I exclaimed, warming up to the idea.

Gazzy and Angel both looked uncomfortable, but my mind was set. I didn't care what it took, I was getting out of here.

Max's POV

By midday we had tracked down the remaining kids. Fang began to notice several traces around noon and we had spotted them about thirty minutes later.

"There they are," Jace hissed. "Let's get 'em!"

"Wait, I have a better idea," I said, a plan forming in my brain. "Let's follow them until night-fall, then, as soon as they're asleep, we go in. That way we have the element of surprise and we can get rid of more of them!"

"Aww, but I'm all pumped up now!" Iggy said, frowning.

I smirked. "I know, Igg. But it'll work much better if we spring the attack on them at night."

"Fine," Iggy said, crossing his arms over his chest. "But I get to go in first!"

"That's fine with me!" I said, suppressing laughter. "Anyone have a problem with Iggy going in first?"

"I do!" Jace said, faking anger. "I wanted to go in first!"

"Well, how about you two go in together?" Nudge suggested.

"Oh, I like that idea!" Iggy said. "Can I wave a flare around?"

"Sure, why not?" I said, laughing.

"It's settled, then," Isabelle said. "Tonight, Jace and Iggy go in first. Iggy waving a flare around like the pyromaniac he is."

~!#$%^&*()_

A/N: I had WAY to much fun writing that last part. ^^ The very thought of Iggy waving a flare around screaming war cries is enough to make me burst out laughing randomly! The end is in, oh, about two chapters or so.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Part one of the finale for the story! Best enjoyed when listening to your favorite epic music.

~!#$%^&*(

Max's POV

It was time.

I reached into my pack and pulled out a flare for Iggy to use. He grasped it eagerly, chuckling evilly. Jace was jumping up and down a little ways away, loosening himself up.

Taki, Fawn and Bud were asleep in the tent. We had decided it was best for them to stay out of the battle to keep them safe.

"Everyone ready to go?" I asked.

The others nodded.

We slunk through the night. As we neared the enemy camp I counted to see how many were left.

12.

Twelve of them and only seven of us. Oh well, we weren't planning on surviving this fight anyway.

When we were close enough I gave Iggy and Jace the signal.

Iggy lit his flare and ran forward, screeching like a maniac. Jace was right behind him.

"Charge!" I shouted, following the two blonde boys.

By now, the other kids had awoken; most panicking.

"What's going on?"

"What's happening?"

"It's an ambush!"

"Grab your weapons!"

I tackled a kid just as he was about to grab a spear. "No you don't!" I hissed.

"You messed with the wrong kids!" Isabelle yelled.

"Don't be afraid! We have them outnumbered!"

I searched for the kid who had spoken. It was the leader again. Hadn't he learned that we were tougher than they were?

As a response to the attempted confidence booster, Iggy threw his flare at the leader. His clothes promptly caught fire.

"AH!"

The leader ran around in circles, screaming in pain.

"Nice, Igg!" I called.

He bowed and ran off to do some more damage.

I turned back to the kid I had pinned beneath me. He was struggling furiously.

"Give it up," I hissed, holding him tighter.

He let out a small whimper in pain, but he was still fighting me. "Never!

Clary came over and kicked the back of the kid's head. "There, one down, if not out."

"Good, I'm still a little hesitant to kill," I murmured, standing. "But I'm not about to let these guys know that."

Clary nodded, but then something caught my eye. Nudge had just gone down.

I couldn't help it; I let out a gasp; even though I knew she'd be fine after.

She disappeared moments later, not leaving a single trace behind.

I released a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding. Yes, she was surely fine by now, back in the time period she belonged in.

"She'll be alright," Clary said, for both her reassurance and mine.

"Yeah, she will," I said. "Now, let's go kick some butt!"

~!#$%^&*

One by one we all were "killed."

The good news was that we took out seven of the remaining kids, including their blood-thirsty leader. Now, Taki, Bud and Fawn had a much bigger chance of survival.

I won't go into detail about how we each died, that'd be gory. But I will describe what the time traveling was like.

As I went down, the pain was suddenly gone. Blackness engulfed me and soon I was aware that I was no longer in the battle. Then, I watched in amazement as time began to pass before my eyes, BACKWARDS.

I watched the entirety of The Hunger Games I had just left pass in a blur, watched other Hunger Games pass, watched as District 13 was blown up. Or rather, un-blown up since time was rewinding.

I suddenly became aware of three other figures standing next to me. I turned to see Magnus, Angel and Gazzy.

"How'd you guys get here?" I demanded.

Magnus waved his hand, dismissing the question. "There's no need to talk about that."

I shrugged, deciding that I didn't really want to know anyway. Then, I continued to watch time pass by.

I watched as the Districts were demolished, instead of built. I watched as the USA was re-built instead of being destroyed.

Now I knew why I had to save the world. If I didn't do something, this would be our future.

_Now do you understand, Max?_

My eyes widened as I heard the Voice. Great…

I decided to ignore it and just keep watching.

"World War Three," Angel whispered as she watched nuclear bombs fly backward.

She was right.

Time began to slow as we neared our proper time.

Finally, time was normal again as an image of Magnus's house solidified into reality.

I shook my head to clear it. It looked exactly like it had when we had left.

"What the?" I asked.

Fang, Isabelle, Nudge, Iggy, Jace and even Alec were all standing around, looking just as confused. Then, we seemed to snap to our senses.

"Alec!" Isabelle cried, throwing her arms around her brother.

"What happened?" Alec asked.

"You honestly don't remember?" Jace asked.

"The last thing I remember is being stabbed," Alec said, calling back his memories. "That, and watching time pass by, literally."

"Well, we're all here, safe. That's all that matters," Angel said happily.

"What are you talking about?" a vampire asked.

Magnus rolled his eyes. "Alright, the party is over. Go home now, buh bye."

The guests all groaned and began trudging to the door.

After everyone had cleared out I sat on the floor, exhausted and relieved.

"That was quite an adventure," Jace commented.

"You can say that again," Iggy said. "The coolest thing was coming back. I could actually see! Although the sights were not the most pleasant."

"Max, I think I know why you have to save the world, now," Angel said quietly.

"Well, I guess we'd better hope you save the world then," Alec said. "I don't want to have to go through that again."

I rolled my eyes.

"I just hope that Taki, Bud and Fawn will be ok," Nudge murmured.

"I do too, but there isn't anything we can do now," I said, giving her a hug.

"Yes there is," Fang said.

I looked at him curiously.

"Save the world, Max."

~!#$%^&*()

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the story… I just have to post the epilogue and this will be over! Thank you, everyone who read and reviewed. You made my first story on here a hit! *Hands out cookies*


	20. Epilogue

Epilogue

After the Flock and the Shadowhunters returned to their normal time, many things happened.

First off, the Hunger Games only lasted for another day. And, as you know, only one child can win. Bud was the winner, as Taki and Fawn had both died saving her from terrible, giant scorpions. The other contestants died because of the scorpions as well.

Bud went back to her home in district seven and received a hero's welcome. Her parents were thrilled to see her return and were relieved that they wouldn't have to worry about her anymore.

District 12 was amazed to find out that the mysterious strangers that had appeared weren't lying about being from the past.

President Snow was furious that the tributes from District 12 had no connections to anyone who actually lived there. The citizens evacuated for fear of being punished. Thus, a rebellion began.

Magnus was very careful with his portals from that point on, but he had also proved that time travel was possible. He became pretty well known.

The Shadowhunters and the Flock made sure to keep in touch, always ready to help each other if necessary. This came in handy as the threat against the Earth became more and more prominent.

Needless to say, this is the end of this tale. What happens next is entirely up to you, my faithful readers. So remain calm and fly on.

~!#$%^&*

A/N: I just want to say thank you to everyone of you. Thanks for sticking with me through the story, my first story, as a matter of fact! If any of you out there would like to do a sequel to this story, be my guest. Just let me know so I can read it!

Fly on,

~Kota


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